The Analysis Of The Yellow Wallpaper From The Perspective Of Women’s Reading And Creation

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a famous American writer. She devoted her whole life to the public career and became the forerunner of the early feminist movement. But her marriage was not happiness. Since she had suffered postpartum depression after her daughter’s birth, she had to receive the "rest cure" by Dr. Mitchell who had treated numerous women as patients. Based on her personal experience, Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper which can be considered as her autobiography. It presented the constraint living of a woman. The narrator as a first person told stories about her life in the ancestral halls since she had suffered postpartum depression. Due to various confinements from the patriarchal power, she finally descended into madness. Through Gilman’s depiction, the story reflected the fact that women were confined by men in the patriarchal society, which hoped to awaken female consciousness to fight for their rights and freedom.This thesis discusses Gilman’s masterpiece The Yellow Wallpaper from the perspective of women’s reading and creation. The thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter one is the introduction which introduces the profile of the author Gilman, the content of The Yellow Wallpaper, the significance and purpose of the thesis.Chapter two is the literature review. It demonstrates feminist literary criticism and its two forms:woman’s reading and woman’s creation. Also, it makes a brief review of previous studies on the novel The Yellow Wallpaper. Since very few scholars try to analyze the story from the perspective of women’s reading and creation, the thesis will give a more detailed analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper by combining women’s reading and creation.Chapter three is the chief part in the whole thesis. It mainly explores The Yellow Wallpaper from the perspective of women’s reading and creation. As to women’s reading, it involves other women reading on The Yellow Wallpaper and Gilman’s reading on the "rest cure" of the story. As to women’s creation, it includes how other women created the plots of imprisonment and escape in their works, which is similar to the characteristics of Gilman’s creation. As to Gilman’s creation The Yellow Wallpaper, through analyzing female characters of the story, it is easy to explore The Yellow Wallpaper and summarize the characteristics of the story.Chapter four is the conclusion of the whole thesis where the major findings are summarized and limitations are discussed.