Is That Feminism in the Wallpaper?

Throughout the year we’ve examined literature dealing with women’s roles, and I must say, watching the transition from domestic literature to controversial stories with feminist undertones. The Yellow Wallpaper is the perfect story to begin talking about the feminist awakening in literature because, at least in my opinion, the narrator’s journey to find meaning in the wallpaper coincides with the nineteenth century’s feminist writers journey to immerge from oppression.

In our course, the first glimpse of literature’s “woman in the wall paper” came in the Wide, Wide World. In this purely domestic novel, a literal guidebook on how to be a good girl, we saw Ellen Montgomery poke the fire. In this act she defied her society and gave period readers shivers of excitement—this was controversy. We moved on and on, encountering example upon example of girls putting their toes across the social boundaries. Eventually we were cross-dressing. And only weeks before the end of our studies we encountered the advent of Gothic literature as a feminist weapon. (This is what I would equate the narrator’s acceptance of the creeping woman, essentially the full extent of her insanity.) In both A Whisper in the Dark and The Yellow Wallpaper, the universally creepy elements of Gothic Literature force the reader, whether male or female, into the shoes of the persecuted woman. And in this, the writers win. They fully subvert early nineteenth century and hail in a new age.

Boys Will Be Boys

Let’s talk about the difference between growing up the city and growing up in the country as a young boy in the nineteenth century. So far we’ve had a two stories concerning boyhood: Ragged Dick and Tom Sawyer. Both Dick and Tom are used in their respective stories as images of the future of America: bright, sunny, intelligent, warlike, etc. But as one story is set in the south and the other is set in the north, they represent two distinctly different societies; two societies that had spent the last half a decade ripping at each others throats. Judging by this, one might hypothesize that these boys would be entirely different; separate visions for two completely different cultures. However, whether by plan or by chance, Ragged Dick and Tom Sawyer are essentially the same character set in two different worlds, the city and the country. Though they both are bright and shining sons of liberty nonetheless.

I suppose the basic idea behind it all calls back to our favorite little adage, “childhood is the only unique human experience.” What we find when we read these stories are two completely different boys in completely different environments still being boys. They’re going to get “ragged and dirty,” they’re clever, superbly smart, but they may not always be “honest injun.” The point is even boys who grow up in vastly different situations still experience boyhood, whether they are wealthy in the country, or living out of a box in the city. This common thread, childhood, can tie even the most bitter enemies together. So here’s the plan: make everyone feel like a child again.

Inner Feeling Projection

In Mark Twain’s The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today he, in short, critiques his society and it’s infamous façade. The Gilded Age was entitled so because on the surface it appeared beautiful, full of potential for the common man and wealth for the rich, but under the golden surface was a much more base material—the dark secrets, child labor, racism, and hopelessness, of the time. Much like Mr. Twain, Rebecca Harding Davis uses her short story The Yares of Black Mountain to answer the Horatio Alger story, to pry the veneers off of Reconstruction culture. Davis uses a perversion of the common ‘quest’ style story to make subtle swipes at falsely optimistic literature. After being told that a change in scenery would cure her dying son, Mistress Denby travels to place where “civilization stops,” projecting her optimism falsely on her surroundings all the way. As stated by other travelers the scenery, at best “lacks the element of grandeur” and yet Denby looks upon everything with awe. She has put herself into a delusional environment, just like the rest of America has created a delusion of easy upward mobility.

Disclaimer I suppose: In the end of the story it turns out that the boy survives. The mother’s hopes come true. Though this is not to say that her delusion is less delusional, she allowed herself to be influenced by baseless hope.

Alger and Ragged Dick

One of our first hypotheses on the role of children in literature was that children function as an image of the future. Children, in a matter of twenty to thirty years, will be fully functioning adults, running the nation, writing, etc. By using children in literature the author can express his hopes and fears for the country, or for humanity in general. In Ragged Dick by Horatio Alger, I think that Dick is Alger’s ideal future American. He is stubborn, self reliant, hardworking, but not uptight about his funds. He is clever, funny and puts his superiors to shame. He stands up for those weaker than him; he is moral and is not afraid to start trouble for the sake of justice. But why must he be male, why must the representatives of future generations be presented to nineteenth century audiences as young men. As much as I hate to say it, it boils down to gender roles. Young women were too busy making toast and learning to take care of the family to represent a generation. In fact, as society stood, there was really no purpose in thinking of a woman as representative of the time. A woman’s job was the same no matter when she was born; she must take care of her family. That is a universal and timeless responsibility of woman of this time. Essentially, my point is that Alger used a young boy to give an image of the future because, let’s face it, the voice of the future must be young, and cannot be girl—there really wasn’t much choice involved. In the end, young boys like Dick represent the hopes of the author for society’s future. And what these young men in literature stand for shows much about the state of 19^th century society. The 19^th century was a time of excessive hope, but only because things were so dismal. The gilded age was a dishonest and oppressive time, a time when honest and fair heroes where created in literature as examples to the present society. In this way, all of this literature is pedagogical, in fact I would venture to say that most any literature worth reading is pedagogical in some way, shape or form.

'Oblivion to the Past

In no way do I feel that Sybil became any less of a reliable narrator once she entered the insane asylum. In fact, I find the very idea that a change setting, no matter how drastic, can invert our trust in a narrator is preposterous, if not offensive. The reader’s job, as we’ve addressed in class, is to actively make personal judgments as the text goes on. And, sure, it’s possible for an author to be deceptive, but just because we can be deceived as readers, does not mean that we blithely step in time with everything the author says.

Even in the story, there is overwhelming evidence that Dr. Karnac and Sybil’s uncle had been planning Sybil’s incarceration for some time. Simply at show of emotion that is, I might add, perfectly normal, Dr. Karnac says that Uncle is “perfectly justified in doing so;” So, in light of future events, obviously refers to incarcerating Sybil. These subtle hints in conversation (“take this quieting draft,” “virulence is a bad symptom” and “drink with me… I was unused to wine… proved too potent for me”) utterly prove that Sybil’s uncle has engineered the entire situation.

To conclude, when Sybil enters the insane asylum the readers should not change their opinions on her. With as much experience as we have with Sybil, the reader should have already known if they trust her or not. The reality is there is no real element of insanity that enters the story. Sure, there is mention of the word and a threat of becoming insane in the asylum, but that is not Sybil’s fault.