Charlotte Perkins Gilman ( ); also Charlotte Perkins Stetson (July 3, 1860 - August 17, 1935), was a prominent American feminist, sociologist, novelist, short story writer, poet, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform. He is a utopian feminist and serves as an example for future generations of feminists because of his unorthodox concept and lifestyle. His best work today is his semi-autobiographical short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" he wrote after a severe postpartum psychosis.
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Gilman was born on July 3, 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut, to Mary Perkins (formerly Mary Fitch Westcott) and Frederic Beecher Perkins. He had only one brother, Thomas Adie, who was fourteen months older, because a doctor told Mary Perkins that he might die if he gave birth to other children. During his childhood Charlotte, his father moved and left his wife and children, leaving them in a poor state. Because their mother could not support her own family, Perkins was often in the presence of her father's aunt Isabella Beecher Hooker, a suffragist, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin and Catharine Beecher, educator.
His school was uncertain: he attended seven different schools, with a cumulative total of only four years, ending when he was fifteen. Her mother did not love her children. In order for them not to be hurt as before, he forbade his children to make strong friendships or read fiction. In his autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman , Gilman wrote that his mother showed affection only when he thought his little daughter was asleep. Although he lived in an isolated childhood, poor loneliness, he unconsciously prepared himself for the life that lies ahead with frequent public libraries and studying the ancient civilizations themselves. In addition, his father's love of literature affected him, and years later he contacted him with a list of books he thought would be useful for him to read.
Most of Gilman's youth were spent in Providence, Rhode Island. What friends he has is mainly male, and he is not ashamed, for his time, calls himself "tomboy."
His natural intelligence and knowledge always impress his teacher, who remains disappointed with him because he is a poor student. His favorite subject is "natural philosophy," especially later known as physics. In 1878, an eighteen-year-old boy was enrolled in classes at the Rhode Island Design School with financial help from his absent father, and later supported himself as a trade card artist. He is a tutor, and encourages others to develop their artistic creativity. He is also a painter.
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Adulthood
In 1884, he married artist Charles Walter Stetson, after initially rejecting his proposal for a premonition telling him that it was not the right thing for him. Their only child, Katharine Beecher Stetson, was born the following year. Charlotte Perkins Gilman suffers from a very serious post-partum depression. This is the age at which women are seen as "hysterical" and "restless" creatures; so, when a woman admits to a serious illness after childbirth, her claim is sometimes rejected.
In 1888, Charlotte was separated from her husband - a rare occurrence in the late nineteenth century. Both were divorced in 1894. After separation, Charlotte moved with her daughter to Pasadena, California, where she became active in feminist and reformist organizations such as the Pacific Coast Women's Women's Association, Women's Alliance, Economic Club, Ebell Society (a women's club named Adrian John Ebell), Parent Associations, and the State Women's Council, in addition to writing and editing the Bulletin , a journal issued by one of the previously mentioned organizations..
In 1894, Gilman sent his daughter to the east to live with her ex-husband and his second wife, her friend, Grace Ellery Channing. Gilman reported in his memoirs that he was happy for the couple, because "the second mother of Katharine is as good as the first, [and probably] better in some ways." Gilman also has a progressive view of father's rights and acknowledges that her ex-husband "has the right to some [Katharine's] community" and that Katharine "has the right to know and love her father."
After his mother died in 1893, Gilman decided to return east for the first time in eight years. He contacted Houghton Gilman, his first cousin, whom he had not seen for about fifteen years, who was a Wall Street lawyer. They start spending a lot of time together almost immediately and become romantically involved. When he will attend a lecture tour, Houghton and Charlotte will exchange letters and spend as much time as possible before they leave. In his diary, he describes it as "fun" and it is clear that he is very interested in him. From their marriage in 1900 to 1922, they lived in New York City. Their marriage was not like her first marriage. In 1922, Gilman moved from New York to Houghton's old home in Norwich, Connecticut. After Houghton's sudden death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1934, Gilman moved back to Pasadena, California, where his daughter lived.
In January 1932, Gilman was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer. A supporter of euthanasia for a severely ill man, Gilman committed suicide on August 17, 1935 by taking a chloroform overdose. In his autobiography and suicide note, he writes that he "chose chloroform for cancer" and he died quickly and calmly.
Careers
At one point, Gilman supported himself by selling door-to-door soap. After moving to Pasadena, Gilman became active in organizing the social reform movement. As a delegate, he represented California in 1896 at the convention of the National American Women's Rights Association in Washington, D.C. and the International Socialist and Workers Congress in London. In 1890, he was introduced to the Nationalist Clubs movement which served to "end the uniformity of capitalism and the distinction between classes while promoting a peaceful, ethical, and truly progressive human race." Published in Nationalist magazine, his poem, "A Case Similar" is a satirical review of people who reject social change and he receives positive feedback from critics for it. Throughout the same year, in 1890, he became quite inspired to write fifteen essays, poems, novels, and short stories The Yellow Wallpaper . His career was launched when he began teaching Nationalism and gaining public attention with the volume of his first poem, In This Our World, published in 1893. As a successful lecturer who relied on speech as a source of income, his fame grew as the circle social activism of activists and writers of similar-minded feminist movements.
"The Yellow Wallpaper"
Although it is not the first or the longest of his works, without question Gilman's most famous work is his short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", which became a best-seller of Feminist Press. He wrote it on June 6 and 7, 1890 at his home in Pasadena, and printed a year and a half later in the January 1892 edition of The New England Magazine. Since the original print, it has been anthologized in various collections of women's literature, American literature, and textbooks, though not always in their original form. For example, many textbooks eliminate the phrase "in marriage" from a very important line at the beginning of the story: "John laughs at me, of course, but people expect it in marriage." The reason for this disappearance is a mystery, because Gilman's view of marriage is clear throughout the story.
Her story of a woman suffering from mental illness after three months was locked up in a room by her husband for her health. He became obsessed with the rebellious yellow wallpaper in the room. Gilman wrote this story to change people's minds about the role of women in society, illustrating how lack of women's autonomy harms their mental, emotional, and even physical health. This story is inspired by her care from her first husband. The narrator in the story must do as her husband, who is also his doctor, demands, even though the care he arranges contrasts directly with what he really needs - mental stimulation and freedom to escape from the monotony of his limited space. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is basically a response to a doctor who has tried to cure him from depression through a "sedative", Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, and he sent her a copy of the story.
Other famous works
Gilman's first book is Gems of Art for Home and Fireside (1888); However, it was the volume of his first poem, In This Our World (1893), a collection of satirical poems, which first gave him recognition. Over the next two decades he gained much of his fame with lectures on women's issues, ethics, labor, human rights, and social reform. He often mentions these themes in his fiction.
In 1894-95 Gilman served as editor of The Impress magazine, a literary weekly published by the Pacific Coast Women's Press Association (formerly Bulletin ). For twenty weeks the magazine was printed, it was consumed in a satisfactory accomplishment of poetry, editorial contributions, and other articles. Short-term paper printing ended as a result of social bias towards his lifestyle which included an unconventional mother and a woman who had divorced a man. After a four-month long lecture tour that ended in April 1897, Gilman began to think deeper about sexual and economic relations in American life, eventually completing the first draft of Women and Economics (1898). The book discusses the role of women at home, debating changes in child and household rearing practices to reduce the pressure of women and allow them to expand their work into the public sphere. The book was published the following year, and pushed Gilman into the international spotlight. In 1903, he spoke to the International Women's Congress in Berlin, and, the following year, toured in England, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Hungary.
In 1903 he wrote one of his most critically acclaimed books, The Home: Its Work and Influence, expanded on Women and Economy, proposed that women be persecuted in their homes and that the environment in which they live needs to be modified in order to be healthy for their mental state. On the sidelines of travel and writing, his career as a literary figure is guaranteed. From 1909 to 1916 Gilman himself wrote and edited his own magazine, The Forerunner , in which many of his fiction appeared. By presenting material in his magazine that will "stimulate the mind", "awaken hope, courage and impatience", and "express ideas that require special media", he aims to fight the overly sensational mainstream media. For seven years and two months, the magazine produced eighty-six editions, each twenty-eight pages long. The magazine has nearly 1,500 subscribers and features serials like What Diantha Did (1910), The Crux (1911), Moving the Mountain (1911) , and Herland . The Forerunner has been cited as "probably the greatest literary achievement of his long career". After seven years, he wrote hundreds of articles sent to Louisville Herald, The Baltimore Sun, and Buffalo Evening News. His autobiography, The Life of Charlotte Perkins Gilman , which he began to write in 1925, appeared posthumously in 1935.
Rest healing treatment
Perkins-Gilman married Charles Stetson in 1884, and less than a year later gave birth to their daughter, Katharine. Already prone to depression, its symptoms are worsened by marriage and motherhood. Most of his diary entries since he gave birth to his daughter until a few years later describe the impending depression he will face.
On April 18, 1887, Gilman wrote in his diary that he was very ill with "some brain diseases" that brought suffering that no one else could feel, to the extent that "his mind has given way." To begin, the patient can not even leave his bed, reading, writing, sewing, talking, or feeding himself.
After nine weeks, Gilman was discharged with Mitchell's instruction, "Live as cleanly as possible in life, take your son with you all the time... Lie down an hour after every meal, have two hours of intellectual life a day." And never touch the pen, brush or pencil as long as you live. "He tried for several months to follow Mitchell's advice, but his depression deepens, and Gilman almost falls into a full emotional collapse. His remaining klein is already at stake and he begins to exhibit a suicidal behavior involving talk of pistols and chloroform, as noted in Her husband's diary In the early summer, the couple decided that a divorce was needed for her to regain her sanity without affecting her husband and daughter's life.
During the summer of 1888, Charlotte and Katharine spent time in Bristol, Rhode Island, away from Walter, and that was where his depression began to rise. He writes about himself who notices positive change in his attitude. He returned to Providence in September. He sold the property he had left in Connecticut, and went with a friend, Grace Channing, to Pasadena, where his depressive healing could be seen through his intellectual life transformation.
Social views and theory
Reform of Darwinism and the role of women in society
Gilman calls himself a humanist and believes that the home environment oppresses women through patriarchal beliefs enforced by society. Gilman embraced the theory of Darwinism's reforms and argued that Darwin's theory of evolution only featured men as given in the process of human evolution, thus ignoring the origins of the female brain in societies that rationally chose the most suitable pair they could find.
Gilman argues that male aggressiveness and motherhood for women are artificial and no longer necessary for survival in post-prehistoric times. She writes, "There is no mind of a woman: a brain is not a sex organ, it can speak of a woman's heart."
The main argument is that sex and the domestic economy go hand in hand; for a woman to survive, she relies on her sexual assets to please her husband so that she will financially support her family. From childhood, young girls are forced into social obstacles that prepare them to become mothers by the toys that are marketed to them and the clothes designed for them. He argues that there should be no difference in the clothes that girls and boys wear, the toys they play, or the activities they do, and describe the tomboys as perfect human beings running around and using their bodies freely and healthily.
Gilman argues that women's contribution to civilization, throughout history, has stalled due to androcentric culture. He believes that women are half-backed humans, and improvements are needed to prevent the deterioration of mankind. Gilman believes economic independence is the only thing that can truly bring freedom to women, and make them equal with men. In 1898 he published Women and Economics a theoretical treatise which argued, inter alia, that women were conquered by men, that motherhood should not prevent a woman from working outside the home, and that the household, cooking, and childcare, will be professionalized. "The ideal woman," wrote Gilman, "is not only given a social role that locks him at home, but he is also expected to love it, be cheerful and gay, smiling and good-humorous." When economic-sexual relations cease to exist, life on the domestic front is bound to increase, as frustration in relationships often stems from the lack of social contact that domestic wives have with the outside world.
Gilman became a spokesperson on topics such as women's perspective on work, clothing reform, and family. Domestic work, he argues, should be equally owned by men and women, and that at an early age women should be encouraged to be independent. In many of his major works, including "The Home" (1903), Human Work (1904), and The Man-Made World (1911), Gilman also encouraged women to work in outdoors.
Gilman argues that homes must be socially redefined. The home should shift from being an "economic entity" in which married couples live together due to economic benefits or needs, to places where men's groups and women's groups can share in "the expression of a peaceful and permanent private life."
Gilman believes having a comfortable and healthy lifestyle should not be restricted to married couples; all humans need a house that provides this facility. Gilman suggests that the type of communal housing open to men and women, consisting of rooms, suites and houses, should be built. This will allow the individual to live alone and still have the friendship and comfort of home. Both men and women will be completely independent economically in a life setting that allows marriage to occur without the economic status of men or women to change.
The structural composition of the house is also redefined by Gilman. She moved the kitchen from the house, left the room to be arranged and expanded in any form and freed the woman from the provision of food at home. The house will be the true personal expression of the individual living in it.
In the end the restructuring of houses and way of life will enable individuals, especially women, to become "an integral part of social structure, in close, direct, permanent relationships with the needs and uses of society." That would be a dramatic change for women, who generally consider themselves limited by family life built on their economic dependence on men.
Race
With regard to African Americans, Gilman writes in the American Journal of Sociology: "The problem is: Given: in the same country, Race A, thriving in social evolution, say, to Status 10, and Race B, evolved in social evolution, say, at Status 4... Given: that Race B, in its current condition, does not develop fast enough to fulfill Ras A. Question: How is the Best and Fastest Race Encouraging Race B Development? "Gilman's solution is that all blacks are under "a certain degree of citizenship" - those who are not "worthy, independent, [and] progressive" - ​​"must be taken by the state."
Gilman also believes that the old stock of British descendants of British colonials surrendered his country to immigrants who, he said, were diluting the reproductive purity of the nation. When asked about his attitude on this issue during his trip to London, he famously quipped, "I am an Anglo-Saxon before all." However, in an effort to win votes for all women, he spoke out against literacy requirements for the right to vote at the American Women's Convention of Women's Select Convention held in 1903 in New Orleans.
Animal
Gilman's feminist work often includes the founding and argument for reforming pet use. In Herland, the Gilman utopia excludes all domesticated animals, including livestock. In addition, at Mountain Move Gilman discusses animal domestication diseases associated with inbreeding. In "When I Was a Witch," the narrator watches and intervenes in examples of animal use while he travels through New York, freeing working horses, cats and hungry dogs by making them "die comfortably." A literary scholar connects the female narrator regression in "The Yellow Wallpaper" to the parallel status of the pet cat.
Critical reception
"The Yellow Wallpaper" originally met with mixed receipts. An anonymous letter sent to Boston Transcript reads, "The story can hardly, apparently, give pleasure to any reader, and to many whose lives have been touched by this dreaded bond of fear, must bring sharp pain.On the other, whose life has become a struggle against the offspring of mental disorder, such literature contains a deadly danger.Should such a story be left without a heavy insult? "
Positive reviewers describe it as impressive as this is the most suggestive and vivid report on why women who lead monotonous lives are vulnerable to mental illness.
Although Gilman had gained international fame with the publication of Women and Economy in 1898, at the end of World War I, he seemed out of sync with his time. In his autobiography he admits that "unfortunately my view of sex questions is of no interest to the current Freudian complex, nor is anyone satisfied with religious presentations as an aid in our extraordinary work to improve the world."
Ann J. Lane writes in Herland and Beyond that "Gilman offers perspective on the main issues of gender we are still working on, the origins of women's conquest, the struggle for autonomy and intimacy in human relationships, central work as a self-definition, a new strategy to raise and educate future generations to create a humane and nurturing environment. "
Bibliography
Gilman's work includes:
Collection of poems
- In This World, 1st ed. Oakland: McCombs & amp; Vaughn, 1893. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895. second edition; San Francisco: Press of James H. Barry, 1895.
- Song of Voting Rights and Paragraphs. New York: Charlton Co., 1911. Microfilm. New Haven: Research Publication, 1977, Women's History # 6558.
- The Next Poem from Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1996.
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Short story
Self Publication
The Forerunner. Tujuh volume, 1909-16. Microfiche. NY: Greenwood, 1968.
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