Sierra Wegener

Dr. Demaray

English 340-Womens Literature

April 8, 2015

How Does Going Crazy Represent Feminism?

An Analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Considered the leading intellectual in the womens movement

from the 1890s to 1920, Charlotte Perkins Gilman was widely known

both in the United States and abroad for her incisive studies of women

role and status in society. (Hedges) While Gilman was a huge face of

the feminist culture, she was also valued as a well-known author. The

Yellow Wallpaper is known as her most known work and The Giant

Wiastra is another of Gilmans short stories but they both share the

common feminist theme of women oppression and being hidden by the

men in society.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses her voice in her writing to push

against the views of women during her time. Her works The Yellow

Wallpaper and The Giant Wiastra demonstrate the issues of women,

how they are viewed and why society is so corrupt for thinking women

this way. Gilman covers the issues of mens power over women, how

women were shut out from the world, how much women were not

trusted, and how society believes women are too nave to be in control

of any important decisions. Gilman pushes these issues through her

writing in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Giant Wiastra. Gilmans past

has a huge effect on her writing.

Gilman writes about a woman who is oppressed by her

controlling husband who makes her believe she is sick in the short

story, The Yellow Wallpaper. Many critics believe that her background

have influence on this story. She grew up in Hartford, Connecticut but it

was not an easy childhood. (Hedges) Her dad, Frederick Beecher was a

relative of the well-known writer, Harriet Beecher Stowe but he

abandoned Charlotte as a young child. (Hedges) This abandonment is

thought to cause her first issue with men. She didnt have an important

male figure but instead she had a bad memory of the only man she

knew. The abandonment by her father caused her mother to raise

Charlotte and her siblings by herself, which resulted in moving around

frequently. (A&E Television Networks, 2015) Then comes the second

man in her life.

Gilman met her first husband while taking an interest in art;

Charles Stetson was an artist. The two got married and had a daughter

in the first year of their marriage. Gilman soon developed severe

depression after having her daughter with Charles Stetson. Due to her

depression she consulted with a doctor named Dr. S Weir Mitchell.

Gilman consulted the prominent nerve specialist Dr. S. Weir Mitchell

and underwent his famous rest cure- a regimen of total bed rest,
confinement, and isolation. (Hedges) This is the life experience that is

believed to influence her writing on The Yellow Wallpaper. Her

character drove herself mad and that is a very similar situation Gilman

was in. It drover her, she said, to the brink of utter mental ruin.

(Hedges)

The Yellow Wallpaper conveys many feminist views and is

thoughts to be Gilmans most feminist writing piece. The Yellow

Wallpaper covers issues pertaining to women being isolated from

society mainly by men, how men believe women are meant to be at

home, and merely in the kitchen. Gilman writes about these issues

because she was part of the feminist stage two during the 1960s.

In The Yellow Wallpaper, the main issue is that the women is

being isolated because is husband is keeping her locked up in her

house. Her husband and her brother, both physicians, believe that she

is mentally insane and needs to rest. The story tells us the house,

where she is isolated. A colonial mansion, a heredity estate I would

say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity- but that

would be asking too much of fate. (page 264) This passage shows

that the place the narrator is stuck in isnt completely awful. It is a nice

mansion but it doesnt make the situation any better. The only reason

for the mansion is so the narrators husband feels homey and so he

can justify her being held hostage.

 The husband also tells the narrator that she needs to take the

nutrients. So I take phosphates or phosphides-whichever is, and

tonics, and journeys, and air and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden

to work until I am well again. (book page 265) This is the husband

using his power over the narrator. It is very common for men to believe

that women do not know anything and use their power that they

believe they have. The text does show that the man doesnt have faith

in his wife to have intelligence.

The surface of the text contains clues about Gilmans

perceptions of the treatment and roles of women. Her main

character stumbles over technical words like phosphates

showing that women were overlooked in education. Moreover,

she demonstrates a normalcy of women that are non-technical-

they should not have to worry about phosphates, which are in

the scientific realm assigned to men. (Poets Forum)

This states that it is obvious that the husband feels that she is

not the smartest because of the fact that she stumbles over the words

which means she doesnt have the comprehension to really understand

what those medication means.

Women being placed in the home were a big issue going on

during this time. It is a reason why the women were fighting against

the man. They didnt want to be forced to stay at home because the
men pictured the women in kitchen. There is a phrase in the book that

implies that women are meant to be in the kitchen. There is a

delicious garden. (book-page 265) The quote right there symbolizes

that women only know things about the kitchen.

The character Gilman sets up in her first few pages is of the

proper Victorian women-dutiful to her husband, simple and non-

technical. Gilman goes out of her way to describe the garden of

the house as delicious, this, perhaps, an allusion to a womens

place in the kitchen. (Poets-Forum)

This states that it is not an accident that she described the

garden as delicious. Gilman uses the word delicious as a symbolism

word to prove that the narrators mind is still in the kitchen, serving her

husband, even though she cant do any physical word due to her

illness.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman also wrote another feminist story called

The Giant Wiastra. This is a story about the repression of women by

the male figure and the isolation. It is connected to Gilmans The

Yellow Wallpaper because they both discuss the womens issues about

not being heard. This story is not only about women being isolated but

their children as well.

In the beginning of this story the main character, who is a

woman that commits adultery with her cousin and gives birth to an
illegitimate son. This son has to be hidden because it is considered a

sin or against the law in this time period the story is wrote in. (The

Giant Wiastra) The women and the son go into hiding so this pushes

the issue of isolation from society. There is a difference between the

two stories including why they are being isolated.

In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator is being isolated by her

husband mostly. He deeply cares about her well being but he does use

his power of control over her to question what is really going on. This

story is hard to wrap our minds around the fact that the husband does

care because he does shut her up in a house, away from all human

contact. The question about if this is ethical on his part is one thing but

the huge question that critics and readers ask if the husband even

cares or if it is him exerting his power over her. While, The Giant

Wistaria is about isolation from the society including your family and

friends. Yes, the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper was isolated from

everyone but the women in The Giant Wistaria is isolated from

everyone because of something she caused. She didnt have to have

an affair with her cousin and have his lovechild, but she did choose to

keep this lovechild. Both stories show that womens rights have come a

long way since the stories have come out.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote these stories because she wanted

the feminist culture to be heard. She no longer wanted to be standing

on the sidelines, watching these issues stand in front of her. She took a

stand and now so many people have read and heard about Charlotte

Perkins Gilman.

Jenny Weatherford from Copenhagen University wrote an

argument for Gilman stating that she was on the right track with

writing The Yellow Wallpaper. Jenny believes that Gilman had the right

idea of fighting for feminist rights because at this time, women were

just targeted and used. They were not valued in society. The women

were pictured as housewives. They were meant for taking care of the

house and children. The men did the work and women were just placed

their for convenience. Gilman didnt only allow her voice to be heard

while she was showing her face all over the feminist movement but it

is obvious that she used her writing, especially The Yellow Wallpaper.

Gilman devoted her life to conveying her ideas to others in

hopes of fostering a better society. But for all her productivity

and publishing success, Gilman did not feel that language was

entirely at her command. Language was for Gilman a rational

tool that could be used to explore and mold ideas, but one that

was inadequate before the chaos of emotion and psychological

pain that tortured her throughout her life. (Weatherford)

Gilman was an author that wanted her voice to be heard but

before she found this voice, she struggled with the silence and pain. It
wasnt just her voice she was trying to find but womens voice, as a

whole, was trying to be sought out.

Gilman felt her pain was locked away in silence and, recognizing

that her own experience was not unique, came as a writer and analyst

of womans condition, to doubt whether language and conventional

means of story-telling could ever present an authentic view of a

womans inner experience.

Jenny Weatherford mentions that Gilman felt the need that she needed

to explain why she wrote The Yellow Wallpaper. This story was a little

out there, for the time that it was being published and Gilman stated

that she wrote it to save people from being driven crazy.

(Weatherford) Gilman had struggled with depressed and then was

isolated which drove her mad and this piece helped her cope with it.

Gilman, who had been perilously close to

madness herself, wanted to give a first-person, inside account of the

experiences of a woman confined and restricted by a rest cure and

to show how that treatment could become the immediate cause of

insanity. (Weatherford)

Jenny points out that Gilman was very touched by this subject

and it is something she is willing to fight for. The Yellow Wallpaper is a

story that makes that woman look really weak but it is meant that way.

It is showing what society looks like and that is why it makes the
readers in this day laugh at how poorly the women are treated and

portrayed.

The Yellow Wallpaper was meant as a tool for Gilman in two

ways. It allowed Gilman to voice her personal experience in a story

that wasnt exactly an autobiography but it allowed her to step back

from that experience that she had with depression. The second way

was Gilman used this story to help out women and promote feminism.

She used this on her side because it was something she truly believed

in. She believed in being more than just a housewife. She believed in

being part of society and not just the part that is the homemaker and a

childbearing wife. Gilman believed in making a better future for women

of all generations. She was a huge face in the feminist community.

Charlotte wrote The Yellow Wallpaper and The Great Wiastra but

those were not her only two accomplishments in life. Her childhood life

was not the best but she did not let the things that happened on in

early years affect how successful she became. She could have

resented her father for leaving her as a child but she got over it. She

chose to speak her heart out about women and the need for them to

have the equal rights in this country. Women deserved to be heard and

not just sitting at home with the many children that then husband in

their life wished to have at that present time.

 Charlotte Perkins Gilman changed the face of feminism through

her voice and her written works. Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses her

voice in her writing to push against the views of women during her

time. Her works The Yellow Wallpaper and The Giant Wiastra

demonstrate the issues of women, how they are viewed and why

society is so corrupt for thinking women this way. Gilman covers the

issues of mens power over women, how women were shut out from

the world, how much women were not trusted, and how society

believes women are too nave to be in control of any important

decisions. Gilman allowed womens voices to be heard.

 Works Cited

Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2015. Web

07 April 2015.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Giant Wisteria." The Online Archive of
Nineteenth-Century U.S. Women's Writings. Ed. Glynis Carr.
Online. Internet. Posted: Fall 1998.
Hedges Elaine. Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Iate of Towson State
University. Web 01 April 2015.
On Feminism and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman. Poets
Forum. Web 25 March 2015.
Weatherford, Jenny. Approaching the Ineffable: The Yellow Wallpaper
and Gilmans Problem with Language. American Studies in
Scandinavia. Web 20 March 2015.