Utopia Or Dystopia:The Imagined Female Community In Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper" And Herland

Charlotte Perkins Gilman(1860-1935)was one of the most influential writers and feminists in the first two decades of the twentieth century.Over the course of her lifetime,Gilman was a prolific writer,who published short stories,novels,poems,essays,and an autobiography.The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” provided a solid foundation for Gilman’s position in American literature,and the utopian novel Herand was a classic of radical feminism.Gilman was committed to the fight for women’s rights.After 25 years,she finally imagined a female community in Herland.In the light of radical feminist criticism and community theory,this thesis analyzes the imagined female community in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Herland.Based on this,the thesis continues to discuss the value and the deficiency of this female community,taking Gilman’s personal experience,the social background and cultural context into consideration.On the one hand,Gilman uses the first-person narration to expose the spatial suppression and spiritual oppression in “The Yellow Wallpaper”,which deconstructs a repressive “hisland”.On the other hand,she presents motherhood and sisterhood as the spiritual bond,and depicts“herland” and “temple” as the common living space in Herland.Thus,she imagines a female community with a beautiful vision.From the deconstruction of “hisland” to the imagination(or construction)of “herland”,Gilman embodies an ideal of women’s independence and selfreliance,which represents female writers’ emphasis on women’s surprising strength and intellectual powers.However,the deconstructive and the constructive strategy are idealized strategies,which embody utopian and even dystopian writing.Madness in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a kind of extreme madness,which embodies the heroine cannot realize her freedom.So,madness in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is dystopian writing.The female community in Herland falls snare to essentialism by placing men on the opposite of women.Moreover,this community is white-centered,excluding women of other races from this so-called harmonious and peaceful island.Therefore,this community cannot extricate itself from a narrow sense of pseudo community,which cannot be realized.The thesis consists of six chapters.Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction to the literary value of Gilman and the selected works.Then,this thesis summarizes foreign and domestic researches.In addition,this part summarizes the core ideas of the community theory by delving into the classics of Aristotle,Marx,T(?)nnies and Williams.It also summarizes the core ideas of radical feminism,demonstrating its influence on the imagined female community in literature.Chapter2 looks at the representation of “hisland” in “The Yellow Wallpaper”.Considerations is given to Gilman’s depiction of the heroine’s physical and psychological confinement.Then,this thesis explores that Gilman establishes female discourse authority through the first-person narration and the form of diary novel.In the end,she deconstructs “hisland”.Chapter 3 shifts the emphasis from the representation of “hisland” to the imagined female community in Herland.The chapter deals with the representation of female community,from two aspects: the shared living space and the spiritual bonds.Chapter 4 deals with the reasons that Gilman imagines a female community by tracing her personal experience and social context.Chapter 5 turns to give a critical reading on Gilman’s imagined female community.The madness in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is dystopian writing.Although madness is a way for the heroine seeking for freedom,the extreme form of madness reveals a dystopia with negative value.Meanwhile,the imagined female community in Herland shows Gilman’s radical feminism.It eliminates binary opposition of gender in patriarchal society,but leads to another binary opposition,falling snare to essentialism.Chapter 6 summarizes the significance and deficiency of Gilman’s the wiring of madness and imagination of the female community.In the light of radical feminist criticism and community theory,the significance of this thesis is to explore the living conditions of individual women and female groups in the American,so as to give a critical reading on Gilman’s female community.We readers should be aware of the negative value that the extreme utopianism may bring,thus recognizing the dystopian meanings in Gilman’s works.