From Escape To Freedom---a Feminist Reading Of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper And Herland

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1865-1935), a notable American writer, socialist as well as one of the most important feminists at the turn of19th and20th century established her reputation mostly by her short story The Yellow Wallpaper and utopian novel Herland which are the typical works of feminism. The two books, however, reflected from different perspectives female consciousness and struggle in male-dominated society. In The Yellow Wallpaper (1895), Gilman discussed how women deconstructed "hisland" in which females are victimized by males in patriarchal society, while in Herland (1915), she constructed a "Herland" in which females are free from defined gender roles and possess immense power physically and intellectually. Gilman’s growth of feminist thoughts can be obviously traced out.This thesis argues that in The Yellow Wallpaper, the weak woman escaped from the patriarchy to gain freedom at the cost of descending into insanity which is a failure to some extent, whereas in Herland, the strong women achieved full autonomy to be free from patriarchy in an all-female society, which is a success.Based on the theory of feminism and technique of comparison, this thesis is divided into five parts to analyze the growth in Gilman and her feminist thoughts.The introduction provides an overview of the frame of the whole thesis as well as the background information of both the author and her master pieces The Yellow Wallpaper and Herland. In addition, literature review and approaches to the thesis are given account of. Chapter two focuses on The Yellow Wallpaper. It discusses that a nameless woman tries to break confinement from different aspects of life:the house, her husband John and social convention. Chapter three centers on Herland. It examines that a group of women realized full autonomy by means of wearing comfortable clothes, moving in grand spaces and developing their own civilization. Chapter four is an exploration into Gilman’s unceasingly developed thoughts in feminism shown in the two works which are in close relation to her personal life. Chapter five arrives at a conclusion that Gilman drew on her own life experience to engender the women in both works to express feminist consciousness and offered ways of fighting against patriarchy, paving the way for future feminist movement.