Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T14:23:12.589Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“But One Expects That”: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper” and the Shifting Light of Scholarship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Julie Bates Dock ,
Daphne Ryan Allen ,
Jennifer Palais  and
Kristen Tracy
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When feminist critics of the 1970s rediscovered “The Yellow Wallpaper,” they constructed an interpretation of the story and the history of its publication and reception. Subsequent critics lent authority to an emerging set of accepted “facts”: nineteenth-century audiences read the tale as a ghost story rather than as a critique of the sexual politics of marriage; Gilman fought valiantly against hostility from the entrenched hierarchy of male editors who refused to publish her work; and irate male physicians censured the story once it appeared. By reexamining the documentary evidence on which those “facts” are based, we examine the role that ideology plays in gathering and interpreting evidence. Gilman's story serves as a fine but certainly not a unique example of how scholarship is as grounded in historical biases as the literature it seeks to illuminate.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 111 , Issue 1: Special Topic The Status of Evidence , January 1996 , pp. 52 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Alberti, John, ed Instructor's Guide for the Heath Anthology of American Literature. 2nd ed. Lexington: Heath, 1994.Google Scholar
Ammons, Elizabeth. Conflicting Stories: American Women Writers at the Turn into the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford UP, 1991.Google Scholar
Berman, Jeffrey “The Unrestful Cure: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.‘” Golden 211–21.Google Scholar
B[lackwell], H[enry] B. Rev. of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Woman's Journal 17 June 1899: 187.Google Scholar
Cady, Edwin H. The Realist at War: The Mature Years, 1885-1920, of William Dean Howells. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1958.Google Scholar
Clayton, John J., ed Heath Introduction to Fiction. 4th ed. Lexington: Heath, 1992.Google Scholar
Erskine, Thomas L., and Richards, Connie L., eds “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Women Writers: Texts and Contexts. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Feldstein, Richard “Reader, Text, and Ambiguous Referentiality in ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper.‘” Golden 307–30.Google Scholar
Feminist Press. Publications catalog. Spring 1994.Google Scholar
Fleenor, Juliann E. “The Gothic Prism: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Gothic Stories and Her Autobiography.” The Female Gothic. Ed. Fleenor. Montreal: Eden, 1983. 227–22.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Sandra, and Gubar, Susan. “From The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination.” Golden 145–14.Google Scholar
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography. 1935. Introd. Ann J. Lane. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1990.Google Scholar
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins “Why I Wrote ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.‘” Forerunner Oct. 1913:271.Google Scholar
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins “The Yellow Wallpaper.” New England Magazine Jan. 1892: 647–64.Google Scholar
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. Boston: Small, 1899.Google Scholar
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Golden Book Oct. 1933: 363–36.Google Scholar
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins “The Yellow Wall Paper.” A Book of the Short Story. Ed. Cross, E. A. New York: American Book Co., 1934. 400–40.Google Scholar
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins “The Yellow Wall Paper—Its History and Reception—Note Left by C.P.G.” Ts. Folder 221. Charlotte Perkins Gilman Papers. Schlesinger Lib., Radcliffe Coll.Google Scholar
Golden, Catherine, ed The Captive Imagination: A Casebook on “The Yellow Wallpaper.” New York: Feminist, 1992.Google Scholar
Greene, Gayle, and Kahn, Coppélia, eds Making a Difference: Feminist Literary Criticism. London: Methuen, 1985.Google Scholar
Haney-Peritz, Janice “Monumental Feminism and Literature's Ancestral House: Another Look at ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.‘” Golden 261–26.Google Scholar
Hedges, Elaine R “Afterword.” Golden 123–12.Google Scholar
Hedges, Elaine R ‘“Out at Last’? ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ after Two Decades of Feminist Criticism.” Golden 319–31.Google Scholar
Hedges, Elaine R, ed The Yellow Wallpaper. New York: Feminist, 1973.Google Scholar
Howells, William Dean, ed The Great Modern American Stories: An Anthology. New York: Boni, 1920.Google Scholar
Howells, William Dean. Letter to Horace Scudder. 5 Oct. 1890. bMS Am 1784. 1 (92). Houghton Lib., Harvard Univ.Google Scholar
Jacobus, Mary “An Unnecessary Maze of Sign-Reading.” Golden 277–27.Google Scholar
Jelinek, Estelle C., ed Women's Autobiography: Essays in Criticism. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1980.Google Scholar
Karpinski, Joanne B “When the Marriage of True Minds Admits Impediments: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and William Dean Howells.” Patrons and Protégées: Gender, Friendship, and Writing in Nineteenth-Century America. Ed. Marchalonis, Shirley. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1988. 212–21.Google Scholar
Kennard, Jean E “Convention Coverage; or, How to Read Your Own Life.” New Literary History 13 (1981): 69–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, Denise D., ed The Diaries of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. 2 vols. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1994.Google Scholar
Kolodny, Annette “A Map for Rereading; or, Gender and the Interpretation of Literary Texts.” New Literary History 11 (1980): 451–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, Ann J., ed The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader: “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Other Fiction. New York: Pantheon, 1980.Google Scholar
Lane, Ann J. To Herland and Beyond: The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. New York: Pantheon, 1990.Google Scholar
Lanser, Susan S “Feminist Criticism, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,‘ and the Politics of Color in America.” Feminist Studies 15 (1989): 415–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovecraft, H[oward] P[hillips] Supernatural Horror in Literature. New York: Abramson, 1945. Introd. E. F. Bleiler. New York: Dover, 1973.Google Scholar
Lynn, Kenneth. William Dean Howells: An American Life. New York: Harcourt, 1970.Google Scholar
Mann, Arthur “Edwin Doak Mead.” Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. 9. Pt. 2. Supp. 2. 442–44.Google Scholar
D, M. “Perilous Stuff.” Boston Evening Transcript 8 Apr. 1892: 6.Google Scholar
Moi, Toril. Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. London: Routledge, 1985.Google Scholar
M[ontgomerie], A[nne]. Rev. of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Conservator June 1899: 60–61.Google Scholar
Oates, Joyce Carol, ed The Oxford Book of American Short Stories. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992.Google Scholar
Parker, Gail “From the Introduction to The Oven Birds: American Women on Womanhood, 1820-1920.” Golden 83–89.Google Scholar
Parker, Gail, ed The Oven Birds: American Women on Womanhood, 1820-1920. Garden City: Doubleday, 1972.Google Scholar
Pizer, Donald, ed Sister Carrie. By Theodore Dreiser. Norton Critical Edition. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“A Question of ‘Nerves.‘” Rev. of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” 10 June [1899]. Folder 301. Charlotte Perkins Gilman Papers. Schlesinger Lib., Radcliffe Coll.Google Scholar
Robson, Anna. Weir Mitchell: His Life and Letters. New York: Duffield, 1930.Google Scholar
Rubenstein, Roberta, and Larson, Charles R., eds Worlds of Fiction. New York: Macmillan, 1993.Google Scholar
Schöpp-Schilling, Beate “The Yellow Wallpaper': A Rediscovered ‘Realistic’ Story.” American Literary Realism 8 (1975): 284–28.Google Scholar
Shumaker, Conrad “Too Terribly Good to Be Printed': Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper.'” Golden 242–24.Google Scholar
Spengemann, William C. Forms of Autobiography: Episodes in the History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale UP, 1980.Google Scholar
Stanford, Judith A., ed Instructor's Guide for the Heath Anthology of American Literature. Lexington: Heath, 1990.Google Scholar
Treichler, Paula A “Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in The Yellow Wallpaper.'” Golden 191–210.Google Scholar
Wells, Carolyn, ed American Mystery Stories. N.p.: Oxford UP, 1927.Google Scholar
Rev. of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Time and the Hour 17 June 1899. Folder 301. Charlotte Perkins Gilman Papers. Schlesinger Lib., Radcliffe Coll.Google Scholar
Rev. of “The Yellow Wallpaper.” News [Newport, RI] 27 Jan. [1905?]. Folder 301. Charlotte Perkins Gilman Papers. Schlesinger Lib., Radcliffe Coll.Google Scholar