A Companion to the American Short Story
Page 25
that Chinese American women can fi nd voice and self - defi nition within their own
communities. The title character in “ Mrs. Spring Fragrance ” writes about Americans:
“ As she walked along she meditated upon a book which she had some notion of
writing. Many American women wrote books. Why should not a Chinese? … The
American people were so interesting and mysterious ” (28). Sui Sin Far slyly implies
here that ethnic women will not be exotic objects of the white and/or male gaze, but
will instead turn their own gaze on to the white community, revealing its mysteries
and secrets. In so doing, these women will fi nd mediums of expression that are specifi c
to Chinese American subjectivity.
The stories discussed above foreground concerns about women ’ s voice and self -
defi nition in a patriarchal (and racist) world that devalues their needs, refuses to allow
108
Martha J. Cutter
them to speak, and turns them into objects of language who are spoken about, rather
than speakers or subjects in their own right. Is language itself, as Gilman and other
feminist linguists have contended, patriarchal, male - centered, or “ androcentric ” ? One
of the reasons
“
The Yellow Wallpaper
”
has been such a popular feminist text is
because of its careful and full investigation of such questions – even if, as we shall
see, it does not necessarily provide an easy resolution to them.
The Problem of Feminine Voice: Gilman ’ s
“ The Yellow Wallpaper ”
Turn - of - the - century women writers often imply that in the world they inhabit, lan-
guage is gendered as masculine, and as “ belonging ” to speakers who are male and
white. Language, as Gilman says, is “ androcentric, ” relegating women to the place of
prepositions: “ [Woman] has held always the place of a preposition in relation to man.
She has been considered above him or below him, before him, behind him, beside
him, a wholly relative existence – ‘ Sydney ’ s sister, ’ ‘ Pembroke ’ s mother ’ – but never
by any chance Sydney or Pembroke herself ” ( The Man - Made World 20). Linguistically,
women are defi ned through their relationship to the male subject, but do not possess
an identity and voice of their own: “ Even in the naming of other animals we have
taken the male as the race type, and put on a special termination to indicate ‘ his
female, ’ as in lion, lioness; leopard, leopardess; while all our human scheme of things
rests on the same tacit assumption; man being held the human type; woman a sort
of accompaniment and subordinate assistant, merely essential to the making of
people ” (20). Language may initiate a process whereby some individuals are granted
voice and identity (or, to use a more modern term, subjectivity), while others are
defi ned as silent and subordinate objects; therefore, the speaking or writing subject
is defi ned as inherently masculine, while the silent object or blank page is inherently
feminine.
“ The Yellow Wallpaper ” forcefully confronts the issue of women ’ s confi nement
within patriarchal language and male - authored medical discourse. The female narra-
tor, suffering from a “ temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency ”
(4), is forbidden by her physician husband to engage in any intellectual activity,
including her own writing. She is also subjected to an actual medical treatment – S.
Weir Mitchell ’ s (1829 – 1914) infamous “ rest cure, ” in which intellectual women were
forbidden to read and write, and forced to rest, eat, and spend time with their babies
– which only makes her mental condition deteriorate. Shut up in a large attic room
that used to be a nursery, she resorts to fi rst “ reading ” the yellow wallpaper and later
writing her own secretive narrative about the hulking, cowering woman she believes
she sees behind the bars of the paper. Ultimately, the narrator determines to free this
woman, and in a burst of energy, strips the wallpaper off the walls. In so doing, she
becomes the other woman; by the end of the story she claims, “ I ’ ve got out at last …
you can ’ t put me back ” (19). Paradoxically, the narrator also has a rope to tie the
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
109
woman, should she try to escape. Finally, the narrator uses this rope to tie herself
securely (presumably to the bed, the only object of furniture left in the room). She
creeps around the perimeter of the room, fi tting her shoulder into a narrow groove
that has been worn in the wall by a previous occupant. When her husband sees her
he faints, so that she has to “ creep over him every time ” (19) she completes a rotation
of the room. On the one hand, the narrator appears to achieve some sort of triumph,
causing the icon of male authority (her husband/doctor) to faint dead away. But what
sort of “ triumph ” is this? The narrator seems completely insane; moreover, she is now
physically constrained by a rope and her confi nement within patriarchal authority
seems all the more assured.
The narrator ’ s descent into insanity is caused, to some extent, by the “ cure ” to
which she is subjected, which infantilizes her and robs her of the tasks she most
enjoys – reading and writing. The story may also be interpreted as being about the
way masculine language (symbolized by the doctor/husband) attempts to confi ne
women within its patriarchal sentence (symbolized by the husband ’ s verdict that
his wife may not leave the room and resume her normal activity of writing). Set
against this masculine, authoritative discourse (which is portrayed as rational,
ordered, and logical) is women ’ s language, embodied by the yellow wallpaper with
its disordered and illogical, yet ultimately more creative, patterns. Paula Treichler
reads the story as a clash between masculine and feminine discourse in which the
wallpaper represents women ’ s writing or women ’ s discourse and the woman in the
wallpaper represents a vision “ of women that becomes possible only after women
obtain the right to speak. ” As a symbol, the yellow wallpaper therefore “ stands for
a new vision of women – one which is constructed differently from the representa-
tion of women in patriarchal language
”
(Treichler 64). In part, then, the story
concerns a clash between opposing modes of discourse: one mode is authoritative,
ancestral, and dominant, and the other is new, impudent, and prophetic (64). Yet
the narrator ’ s escape from “ the sentence ” does not lead to a permanent liberation,
as Treichler further explains; although the narrator has made manifest the nature of
women ’ s condition, she is still locked in a room and bound by a rope (74). The
social and material conditions the narrator has diagnosed must change before she
can be free.
Further, the narrator only escapes from patriarchal discourse through a radical
deconstruction of her own self. Caught between modes of discourse which are fi gured
as opposite – the rational and the imaginative, the logical and the illogical, the sane
and the insane, the masculine and the feminine – the narrator ’ s persona
lity splits; she
forms two warring psyches that mirror the discursive modes that surround her.
Through identifi cation with the wallpaper and the woman in it, she creates a subver-
sive personality that tries to help the woman escape, one that so identifi es with the
woman in the wallpaper that she becomes this unruly presence. This subversive feminine
self strips off the wallpaper and ultimately claims: “ I ’ ve got out at last … you can ’ t
put me back ” ( “ Yellow Wallpaper ” 19). This self works with the woman in the wall-
paper to free all women: “ I pulled and she shook. I shook and she pulled, and before
110
Martha J. Cutter
morning we had peeled off yards of that paper ” (17). This self opposes patriarchal
authority and her rebellion seems to succeed, at least momentarily; the husband faints
when he sees this new, subversive self.
Yet in the fi nal scene, there is also a self that attempts to escape from subjugation
by incorporating the oppressor ’ s views. Prisoners placed in positions of authority will
sometimes tyrannize other inmates more than the jailers; identifi cation with the
oppressor becomes a psychological strategy of self - preservation. So while the narrator
forms a feminine personality matching that of the woman in the yellow wallpaper,
she also forms a masculine one inculcating patriarchal values. This personality con-
stantly wars with the wallpaper, attempting – and failing – to “ master ” it, to impose
sequence on it. Finally, it is this oppressor self that agrees to the incarceration of the
prisoner in the wallpaper, and to its own incarceration:
If that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her! … I am securely fastened
now by my well - hidden rope – you don ’ t get me out in the road there! … Here I can
creep smoothly on the fl oor, and my shoulder just fi ts in that long smooch around the
wall, so I cannot lose my way. (18)
As Linda Wagner - Martin comments, although the latter half of the story seems to
move toward the protagonist
’
s liberation, this freedom is ultimately false:
“
The
woman does not dance or skip or fl y, common images for the state of freedom. She
only creeps , a derogation of the more positive word crawls , which is not itself a very
positive movement ” (61). The oppressor self accepts her confi nement within the house
of patriarchy, and her creeping, imprisoned, alienated status within patriarchal
language.
Trapped between the subversive patterns of the yellow wallpaper and her husband ’ s
rational discourse, between the masculine and feminine sides of her personality, the
narrator forms two incompatible identities that mirror two oppositional discursive
modes. Finally, in the warring between these two opposed linguistic modes, her per-
sonality and voice are erased by madness. Gilman ’ s text articulates what were for her
– at this time – irresolvable oppositions between the feminine and the masculine,
between a language that is freeing and one that constrains.
Some critics have confl ated Gilman with her semi
-
autobiographical character,
and indeed there are many parallels: Gilman did suffer from post - partum psychosis
after the birth of her daughter, she was subjected to S. Weir Mitchell ’ s rest cure,
she did spiral down towards insanity, and she did (like the narrator) write about
these experiences. Yet Gilman eventually recovered from her mental illness. What
saved her, specifi cally, was writing. Gilman abandoned S. Weir Mitchell ’ s rest cure,
went back to her work, and wrote frequently about mental and physical illness. She
also authored feminist fi ctions that depict a more successful resolution of the con-
fl ict between masculine language and feminine voice. Short stories such as
“
An
Honest Woman ” (1911), “ Mrs. Beazley ’ s Deeds ” (1911), and “ Dr. Clair ’ s Place ”
(1915) insert an unruly feminine subject into masculine language. This angry
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
111
subject breaks apart patriarchal discourse by traversing boundaries, by refusing to
silence herself, and by telling stories that critique and rewrite the gaps of patriar-
chal history.
Writing a Cure for Women ’ s Silencing:
Gilman ’ s Later Short Fictions
Written almost twenty years after
“
The Yellow Wallpaper,
”
Gilman
’
s short story
“ An Honest Woman ” illustrates that women can learn to use language effectively,
but also that they can come to understand and manipulate the underlying processes
whereby meaning is created and linguistic authority is granted. The story begins
with a conversation that seems to reveal women ’ s secondary status in language and
culture. Two men discuss Mary Main, the owner of a successful boarding hotel.
While one man – Abramson – talks and talks about Mary, saying, “ There ’ s an honest
woman if ever there was one! ” (75), the other man – Burdock – only feeds him an
occasional question:
“ I ’ ve got a high opinion of good women, ” [Abramson] announced with fi nality. “ As to
bad ones, the less said the better!
”
and he puffed his strong cigar, looking darkly
experienced.
“ They ’ re doin ’ a good deal towards reformin ’ ‘ em, nowadays, ain ’ t they? ” ventured
Burdock.
The young man laughed disagreeably. “ You can ’ t reform spilled milk, ” said he. “ But
I do like to see an honest, hard - working woman succeed. ”
“ So do I, boy, ” said his companion, “ so do I, ” and they smoked in silence. (76)
For Abramson, women are words in men ’ s mouths, and men have the ability to ste-
reotype and defi ne them as angels or whores, “ good women ” or “ ruined ” ones. Notably,
however, Burdock is rather silent; he is aware that some women escape men
’
s
categorizations.
As Burdock knows, Mary Cameron Main is not, in actuality, a “ good ” woman. A
fl ashback reveals that Mary had an adulterous affair and bore a child out of wedlock.
After Mary ’ s lover abandons her, she realizes she is “ ruined ” : “ ‘ I suppose I am a ruined
woman, ’ she said. She went to the glass and lit the gas on either side, facing herself
with fi xed gaze and adding calmly, ‘ I don ’ t look it! ’ … The woman she saw in the
glass seemed as one at the beginning of a splendid life, not at the end of a bad one ”
(82). This moment of mirroring refl ects a radical swerve from the patriarchal plot, a
moment in which women are encouraged to comprehend the artifi ciality of the lin-
guistic categories used to defi ne them, and to break from these categories.
In this scene, Mary also comprehends the rules of her culture ’ s “ language game ” :
men control and manipulate language, authoring women
’
s destiny through their
words; women are silent, passive agents within language – created by language, rather
112
Martha J. Cu
tter
than creators of it. But at this crucial juncture, Mary rejects the rules of this language
game as it has been played. She moves to another town, dresses in black, and when
asked about her husband presses her handkerchief to her eyes and says only, “ He has
left me. I cannot bear to speak of him ” (83). Literally, she classifi es her husband as
unspeakable, but on a more metaphoric level, this statement demonstrates that Mary
has discerned that she need not be passively constructed by patriarchal words, but
rather can actively and consciously engage in the linguistic processes that shape how
she is received. In short, Mary has become a person who not only uses language, but
who also understands and intervenes in its functioning.
Mary demonstrates her linguistic ability most clearly when her former lover returns
and threatens to blackmail her by revealing her “ fallen ” status to her boarders, saying
he could “ shatter [her life] with a word ” (85). Mary merely smiles patiently at Main
and states: “ You can ’ t shatter facts, Mr. Main. People here know that you left me
years ago. They know how I have lived since. If you try to blacken my reputation
here, I think you will fi nd the climate of Mexico more congenial ” (86). Mary takes a
calculated risk, asserting that her actions have constructed a world that transcends
the linguistic categories that normally would be applied to her. The battle is played
out over and within language. Mr. Main tries to force Mary to abide by the rules of
the old language game, while Mary asserts a new reality in which she is judged by
her actions, rather than by outdated and sexist linguistic categories. Mary ’ s confi dence
in her own abilities fi nally convinces Mr. Main that her reality is more credible, and
he gives up his plan. Furthermore, Mary ’ s new reality is affi rmed by the external frame
of the story, in which a silent observer – the male character Burdock – overhears the
entire story yet does not reveal Mary ’ s secret (86). The story fi nally illustrates that
while masculine language may claim to construct women, an understanding of lan-
guage ’ s functioning gives women the ability to reconstruct themselves and create a
supportive community in which they are judged by their actions, rather than by
patriarchal stereotypes.