For my theory essay, I plan on relating the aspects of the feminist theory to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In the story, the woman suffers from what we know in our modern day medical terminology as post partum depression. Her husband, who is a doctor thinks that she is suffering from a temporary depression that he decides makes her irrational and incapable of making her own decisions. He locks her away in a room and limits her access to the rest of the house during the summer. The woman starts to hallucinate about the yellow wallpaper that decorates her room, thinking that there are women within it and that she is one of them. A metaphor to how she is a prisoner. My secondary sources were going to be about the author herself, Gilman. I am going to see how her life affected and inspired this story to create this early work of American feminist literature. Also, I’m going to use text from the feminist theory to prove that this story is in fact dealing with feminist thought and look at other works that were written during this time, such as the Awakening by Kate Chopin to covey the message of women beginning to come into their own and think and feel for themselves.
Though “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Awakening” are two different types of feminist text, they are relatable in that they both share the common foundation of being about two women who are trying to make sense of the world around them while their husbands try to stifle their minds and their emotions. Elizabeth Lee writes in her article, Feminist Theory: An Overview, “The female experience, then, began to take on positive affirmations. The Female Aesthetic arose — expressing a unique female consciousness and a feminine tradition in literature — as it celebrated an intuitive female approach in the interpretation of women’s texts. It “spoke of a vanished nation, a lost motherland; of female vernacular or Mother Tongue; and of a powerful but neglected women’s culture” (1996).
