LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

Discuss the application of relevant theories of literary criticism in any selected text. Your answer should not be more than 1000 words.

Short Story : The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1899)

Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals. Some critics consider literary criticism a practical application of literary theory, because criticism always deals directly with particular literary works, while theory may be more general or abstract. There are a few types of literary criticism in literature and one of them is feminism criticism. Feminist literary criticism, arising in conjunction with sociopolitical feminism, critiques patriarchal language and literature by exposing how these reflect masculine ideology. It examines gender politics in works and traces the subtle construction of masculinity and femininity, and their relative status, positioning, and marginalization within works. Feminist criticism concern itself with stereotypical representations of genders. It also may trace the history of relatively unknown or undervalued women writers, potentially earning them their rightful place within the literary canon, and helps create a climate in which women's creativity may be fully realized and appreciated. The short story The Yellow Wallpaper, by nineteenth-century feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was first published in 1892 in New England Magazine. Gilman's story,

based upon her own experience with a rest cure for mental illness, was written as a critique of the medical treatment prescribed to women suffering from a condition then known as neurasthenia. The significance of The Yellow Wallpaper as a feminist text, however, was not acknowledged until the critically acclaimed 1973 reissue of the story by the Feminist Press. Henceforth, The Yellow Wallpaper made its way into the canon of feminist literature, becoming a staple of university women's studies courses. This story has been interpreted by feminist critics as a condemnation of the andocentric hegemony of 19th century medical profession. The narrator's

suggestions about her recuperation (that she should work instead of rest, that she should engage with society instead of remaining isolated, that she should attempt to be a mother instead of being separated entirely from her child) are dismissed out of hand using language that stereotypes her as irrational and, therefore, unqualified to offer ideas about her own condition. The feminist interpretation has drawn on the concept of the "domestic sphere" that women were held in during this period. She did mentioned about : There is a delicious garden!, shows that she is emphasizing the feminism criticism. Modern feminist critics focus on the degree of triumph at the end of the story: while some may claim that the narrator slipped into insanity, others see the ending as a female's assertion of freedom in a marriage in which she felt trapped. She also felt that her husband did not understand her as she wrote in the story : John does not know how

much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.

She was interpreting symbolism of women's writing which has been lost or ignored by the male point of view. The emphasis on reading and writing as gendered practices also

illustrated the importance of the wallpaper. If the narrator were allowed neither to write in her journal nor to read, she would begin to "read" the wallpaper until she found that for which she was lookingan escape. Through seeing the women in the wallpaper, the narrator realizes that she could not live her life locked up behind bars. How she wished that she could be out of the room. At the end of the story, as her husband John, lies on the floor unconscious, she crawls over him, symbolically rising over him. This is interpreted as a victory over her husband, albeit she lost her sanity in the process At the time of its initial publication in 1892, The Yellow Wallpaper was regarded primarily as a supernatural tale of horror and insanity in the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe. The story has sparked lively critical discussion and ongoing debate over the symbolic meaning of the wallpaper, the extent to which the story represents an effective feminist statement, and the implications of the story's ending. Critics continue to debate the question of whether Gilman provides a feminist solution to the patriarchal oppression that is exposed in the story, while acknowledging the enduring significance of The Yellow Wallpaper as both a feminist document and a literary text for contemporary readers.

REFERENCE 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Wallpaper 2. http://www.gradesaver.com/the-yellow-wallpaper/ 3. http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Charlotte_Perkins_Gilman/The_Yellow_Wallpaper/The_Yell

ow_Wallpaper_p1.html

4. http://www.scribblingwomen.org/cgwallpaper.htm 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_criticism 6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_literary_criticism