Monday, November 27, 2017

HW 11/27: Read The Yellow Wallpaper

Here is an online copy / .pdf of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"

And here is an interesting footnote -- the author's published article, "Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper"

And here is "Haunted House/Haunted Herione: Female Gothic Closets in 'The Yellow Wallpaper'", a dazzlingly researched example of the current (2009) state of critical analysis on this story, in the form of a 20+ page essay with upwards of fifty Works Cited entries (some germane to the argument, some tangential).  Although there are places where the narrative of the essay wanders a bit much for my taste, it is nevertheless a formidable piece of scholarship.  Carol Margaret Davison synthesizes numerous critical viewpoints into a compelling argument for reading "The Yellow Wallpaper" on a level far deeper than Gilman herself suggests -- specifically advocating for the story, and perhaps the Female Gothic genre per se, as deserving of a permanent home in the American Lit canon.

Note: we're not going to write anything as intense as this, but we can appreciate from afar.  Carol Margaret Davison is a pro, kids.  Warning: do not try this at home.  :)

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