The Yellow Wallpaper And Linda Addison's

Priya Nayak

Spring 2023

LMC 3212

Project #2: Women in Horror Fiction

Horror has long been used as a means of exploring societal problems and apprehensions. Many authors use the same elements of horror in different ways to create vastly different effects on their readers, in particular, it has frequently been utilized to analyze issues associated with gender and feminism. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's and Linda Addison's works beautifully use horror to analyze feminist issues during their period. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Linda Addison's "One Night Stand" use horror as a literary device to amplify feminist issues and ideals, like patriarchal oppression, gender inequality, and the subversion of women's agency, by depicting

The overall story depicts the struggles faced by women with mental illnesses and the social expectations they had to live up to during the 1880s. Gildman suffered from "severe and continuous nervous breakdown" like the narrator of our story and was asked to follow a similar treatment plan that made matters worse (Gilman). "The Yellow Wallpaper" was revolutionary as it uses horror to showcase the fault in the system and had life-changing impacts. Many women went through postpartum depression, however, physicians gave "solemn advice to “live as domestic a life as far as possible,” to “have but two hours’ intellectual life a day,” and “never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again” as long as [they] lived" which made their mental health plummet more and made things worse (Gilman). Regardless, Gilman was able to influence countless people through this story as it showed what women went through during these extended periods of isolation. She also says that a few years after the publication of this story the specialist that treated her also changed his treatment plans (Gildman). This story forced a change in the way women’s mental illnesses were treated instead of

This reflects the male dominance and the lack of control women had over their own lives during this time. The protagonist mentions that "a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency - what is one to do?" showing the lack of power she has over her own life (Gilman 2). She suspects that the treatment would not help but she has no support to voice her opinions even her brother, who is also a great physician, agrees with her husband.

The narrator's overall experience highlights the subversion of women's agency, as she is deprived of her autonomy and diminished to a passive spectator of her own life. When she says, "I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I'm sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition" we can see this (Gilman 2). She uses her illness to justify her loss of agency because it is considered absurd to not conform to her husband's wishes and what he believes her illness