NEA RETAKE

Gilbert and Gubar’s thesis The Madwoman in the Attic suggests that because society forbade women from expressing themselves through creative outlets, their creative powers were channelled into psychologically self-destructive behaviour and subversive actions.

Using ideas from the Critical Anthology to inform your argument to what extent do you agree with this view in relation to The Yellow Wallpaper?

The nameless female protagonist,

Psychologically, an explanation for her decent into lunacy could refer to the theory that, when a person is deprived of their liberty and autonomy, they become increasingly more proactive in their struggle to feel a sense of freedom due to their increasing frustration. Therefore, it could be concluded that because the woman is effectively imprisoned, she uses her obsession with the wallpaper as an expressive outlet in order to experience some form of catharsis. Furthermore, her fixation on the wallpaper becomes the only element of her life that she has any control over, hence why she is more susceptible to any form of anger and that is why she becomes obsessed with the woman in the wallpaper, as it is the only ‘thing’ available to displace her emotions onto. For instance, at the beginning of the text, it is very clear that John is her main concern as she constantly puts him first, this is due to the fact that she is part of a phallocentric society that means the distribution of power is not equal due to the male centred nature of civilisation. Her obsession with john is clear not just in terms of her welfare but also in the way she talks, such as when she refers to him first when talking about them both ‘John and myself’ shows this. Therefore, as john, as an individual very active in the public sphere, becomes progressively more absent due to his ‘serious cases’, her emotional outlet that she releases towards him becomes less accessible, therefore her obsessive attitude towards him shifts to a new outlet, being the wallpaper and therefore the woman she sees in it.