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Analysis Of A Feminist Criticism Of The Yellow Wallpaper

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To what extent is a feminist criticism helpful in opening up meanings in "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman?
To completely ignore the feminist perspective of "The Yellow Wallpaper" would be unwise. Context Is often pivotal in understanding a text 's meaning and Gilman 's upfront feminist standpoint not only directly influenced her life but her work as well. The central characters turmoil draws obvious parallels to women 's suffering at the time. The idea of a feminist narrator sets the template for a radical and forward-thinking novel.
Gilman has claimed she wrote "TYW" to "Save people from being turned crazy" by the treatment of Mitchell and his peers. But just taking that as gospel would be foolish as there is far more contextual inspiration for the novel then just this. Gilman was raised by strong and rebellious female figures including her aunt Catherine Beecher who was the founder of the Hartford Female Seminary and her aunt Isabella who was a dedicated suffragist. Due to the absence of her father, Charlotte "learned early to question the sanctity of the home, the 'domestic mythology ' and the role assigned to women '. Surely with this sort of upbringing a text like "The Yellow Wallpaper" cannot be so plainly viewed.
Others believe it was inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe novel "The Tell-Tale Heart". Their …show more content…

The setting itself is of utmost importance when looking at it through a feminist lens. The house the narrator occupies is a "most beautiful place" that stands "quite alone ... well back from the road, quite three miles from the village" . The estate 's grounds are composed of "hedges and walls and gates that lock". This depiction paints the house as a mechanism of confinement, an ancestral place situated within the confines of a legacy consisting of control and supervision. The house could be said to represent the patriarchal society of the time, thanks to nature being apart of it 's confinement this could be to convey the extent of

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