Gothic and Feminist Elements of The Yellow Wallpaper -- Feminism Femin

mediaeval and Feminist Elements of The Yellow W in allpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper has been interpreted in many ways over the years. Modernist critics have applied depth psychology to the story and written ab step to the fore the symbolism of sexual repression in the babys room bars, the chained-down bed, and the wallpaper. Genre critics have discussed the story as an example of supernatural medieval fiction, in which a ghost actually haunts the narrator. But most importantly, libber critics (re)discovered the story in the 1970s and interpreted it as a reexamination of a society that subjugated women into the role of wife and mother and crush them so much that all they could ever hope to be was an nonesuch in the house. Keeping in mind that The Yellow Wallpaper so-and-so be - and most often is - interpreted as a libber text in this way, we must also recognize that it holds its own in the Gothic genre. In fact, Eugenia Delamotte claims that women wh o just cant seem to get out of the house are the most basic subject of Gothic plots (207). The Gothic has invariably been and still is a genre that picks up on the concerns of its day. In the uniform way that postmodern Gothic (Don DeLillo and John Crowley, for example) concerns itself with late twentieth carbon technological issues, Gilmans Gothic of a century ago was very come to with the plight of women in American society. When we recognize The Yellow Wallpaper as both a feminist treatise and a Gothic text, we can amaze drawing conclusions that might not be obvious had we overlooked this triple nature of the story. Gilmans narrator - who appears to be suffering from postpartum depression - has been diagnosed by several male physicians, including her husband, and... ... Gothic and feminist. It is both classically Gothic and an mien of the position Gilman would like to see women achieve in society. This duality is sooner powerful. The Gothic trope of concealed objects is w hat enabled Gilman to best express her feminist views on the status of women in her suffocating society. Her nameless narrator is representative of all American women who have lost their identity to oppressive and unfulfilling domestic roles. kit and caboodle Cited Delamotte, Eugenia C. Male and Female Mysteries in The Yellow Wallpaper. Legacy. 5.1 (1988) 3-14. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century literary Criticism. Paula Kepos. 37. Detroit Gale, 1991. Golden, Catherine. The Writing of The Yellow Wallpaper A Double Palimpest. Studies in American Fiction. 17.2 (1989) 193-201. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. David Segal. 13. Detroit Gale, 1993