Moving Beyond Motherhood in The Yellow Wallpaper by...

Since its original publication in The New England Magazine in May 1892 and its subsequent resurrection by modern feminists in the l970s, Charlotte Perkins Gilmans novella, The Yellow Wallpaper has gone through varied interpretations. When it was originally written, The Yellow Wallpaper was considered a tale of horror, so horrible in fact, that one editor, Horace Scudder of the Atlantic Monthly, refused the work because he did not want to make others as miserable as he was when he read it. Even as late as 1971, Gilmans work was anthologized under the category of horror (Kennard 75). It was not until the work was rediscovered and republished in 1973 that modern feminist critics recognized the female hero as a victim of†¦show more content†¦This is a crucial period of adjustment for the new mother, whether she has just had her first or third child. In the chapter, the authors include several quotations by mothers who have experienced extreme cases of what can become chronic stress as women attempt to answer to everyone elses needs but their own. As one women described her feelings: I have this dream that keeps coming back, since just a couple of months after my second baby was born. In it, I am caught in a wall, so that I am part of what is keeping the room from falling in on itself. In the room there are a lot of people--mostly family--eating and drinking. I want to come out, but they cant or dont hear me. I want to leave the wall, but I am caught and it seems like I am invisible to them. (411) Toward the end of the chapter on postpartum, the Collective enumerates a list of demands that they feel society must address, including the need to offer services to the new mother so that she does not feel isolated, incompetent and overextended. Another mother is quoted in this part of the chapter, who again used the wall analogy: One day I thought about all the mothers in all the households: apartment buildings, one-and two-family houses, farmhouses, mobile homes, rented rooms. I thought of us at home alone with ourShow MoreRelatedDominguez 1. Naraly Dominguez. Professor Mahaffey. Enc1779 Words   |  8 Pagesweaker-minded, more timid and vacillating, but that whosoever, man or woman, lives always in a small, dark place, is always guarded, protected, directed and restrained, will become inevitably narrowed and weakened by it. -Charlotte Perkins Gilman Gilman’s short story The Yellow Wallpaper first appeared on the New England Magazine in May 1892. However it wasn’t until William Dean Howells included the story in his 1920 collection of Great Modern American Stories that the story gained attention. However