Slides for a lecture for the Arts One program (http://artsone.arts.ubc.ca) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada. This lecture is about Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper" as well as her book Our Androcentric Culture, or The Man-Made World. It also discusses historical and personal context to these writings, including neurasthenia and the "rest cure" proposed by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell.

1. Christina Hendricks
Arts One
January 2017
Gilman, “The Yellow Wall-
Paper,” and related readings

2. Charlotte Perkins (Stetson) Gilman
Image from Wikimedia Commons, public domain
1895 c. 1900
Image from Wikimedia Commons, public domain

3. Gilman’s aunts
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Image from Wikimedia Commons,
public domain
Isabella Beecher Hooker
Image from Wikimedia Commons,
public domain
Catherine Beecher
Image from Wikimedia Commons,
public domain

4. Gilman in earlier years
1883, age 24
Image from Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Charles Walter Stetson
Screenshot from ebook, Wild Unrest (Horowitz, 2010)
Image removed before
posting publicly online
due to copyright
restrictions

5. “In Duty Bound” (1881, 1883)
In duty bound, a life hemmed in,
--Whichever way the spirit turns to
look;
No chance of breaking out, except
by sin,
--Not even room to shirk--
--Simply to live, and work.
An obligation preimposed,
unsought,
--Yet binding with the force of
natural law;
The pressure of antagonistic
thought;
--Aching within, each hour,
--A sense of wasting power.
A house with roof so darkly low
--The heavy rafters shut the sunlight out;
One cannot stand erect without a blow;
--Until the soul inside
--Cries for a grave--more wide.
A consciousness that if this thing endure,
--The common joys of life will dull the pain;
The high ideals of the grand and pure
--Die, as of course they must
--Of long disuse and rust.
That is the worst. It takes supernal strength
--To hold the attitude that brings the pain;
And there are few indeed but stoop at length
--To something less than best,
--To find, in stooping, rest.

6. Gilman: mental health
1883, age 24
Image from Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Several episodes of mental &
emotional difficulties
throughout life
Particularly bad after
daughter born 1885
Treated by S. Weir Mitchell
1887

7. S. WEIR MITCHELL &
NEURASTHENIA

8. Neurasthenia
George Miller
Beard (1839-1883)
Screen shot of American Nervousness from archive.org
“nerve exhaustion”
“deficiency or lack
of nerve force”
cause: “modern
civilization”
-- American
Nervousness vi
Image from Wikimedia Commons,
public domain

9. Neurasthenia: Causes
• Steam power
• Travelling long
distances by train
• Periodical press
• Clocks, punctuality
• Increase in amount of business
• “rapid development and
acceptance of new ideas”
(American Nervousness 113)
• “the mental activity of
women” (Ibid. vi)

10. Neurasthenia: Treatments
Drugs
(including sedatives)
Rest
(e.g., Mitchell)
Electrotherapy
Dr. Buckland’s Scotch Oats Essence, Flickr photo shared
by Boston Public Library, licensed CC BY 2.0

11. Electrotherapy
Electropathic Belts ad (c. 1890), Wellcome Images,
licensed CC BY 4.0
General Faradization (1873), Wellcome
Images, licensed CC BY 4.0

12. Silas Weir Mitchell
S. Weir Mitchell examining Civil War Vet, Wellcome Images, licensed CC BY 4.0
S. Weir Mitchell in 1909, Wikimedia Commons,
public domain

13. Silas Weir Mitchell
S. Weir Mitchell in 1909, Wikimedia Commons,
public domain
“Wear and Tear” article (1871)
• Wear: exhaustion from normal use
• Tear: exhaustion from overuse
• More likely from indoor mental
work than physical work
• Treatment of “tear” for men: “camp
cure”
• At first, for women: “rest cure”
(later also gave “camp cure”)

14. Mitchell’s rest cure
• Seclusion from family
• 6-8 weeks rest
• Massage, electrotherapy
• Feeding
• Convalescence
Louis Lang, The Invalid (1870),
Wikimedia Commons, public domain

15. Gilman on Mitchell
“Why I Wrote ‘The Yellow
Wall-Paper’” (1913)
“This wise man put me to bed and
applied the rest cure, … [then] sent
me home with 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 I lived.”
Helen L. Horowitz, Wild Unrest
(2010): Exaggeration? Gilman c. 1915, Flickr photo shared by Schleisinger Library
(Harvard), no known copyright restrictions

16. Gilman, later life
Gilman & daughter, ca. 1897, Flickr photo
shared by Schleisinger Library (Harvard),
no known copyright restrictions
• 1888: separated from Walter
Stetson, moved to California
w/daughter Katherine (divorced
1894)
• Becomes prominent writer &
public intellectual
• 1894: sends daughter to live with
father & new wife
• 1900: marries cousin George
Gilman
• 1909-1916: The Forerunner
• 1935: death—”I have preferred
chloroform to cancer”

17. “THE YELLOW WALL-PAPER”
(1892)

18. The “Female Gothic”
Cliveden Mansion, Philadelphia, Wikimedia Commons, public domain
-- Carol M. Davison, “Haunted
House/Haunted Heroine: Female Gothic
Closets in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper” (2004)
Woman taken to castle or
manor home by man
House represents women’s
ambivalence towards social
institutions (fear of
entrapment/desire for
protection)
Dark underside of domestic
ideals
Repressed & dangerous
aspects of self threaten to
surface

19. “Creeping” Women
“She Walketh Veiled and Sleeping”
Women’s Journal (1889)
She walkedth veiled and sleeping,
For she knoweth not her power;
She obeyeth but the pleading
Of her heart, and the high leading
Of her soul, unto this hour.
Slow advancing, halting, creeping,
Comes the Woman to the hour!–
She walketh veiled and sleeping,
For she knoweth not her power.

20. “An Obstacle” (selections)
I was climbing up a mountain-path
With many things to do,
Important business of my own,
And other people's too,
When I ran against a Prejudice
That quite cut off the view.
My work was such as could not wait,
My path quite clearly showed,
My strength and time were limited,
I carried quite a load;
And there that hulking Prejudice
Sat all across the road.
So I spoke to him politely,
For he was huge and high,
And begged that he would move a bit
And let me travel by.
He smiled, but as for moving! --
He didn't even try.
Then I flew into a passion,
and I danced and howled and swore.
I pelted and belabored him
Till I was stiff and sore;
He got as mad as I did --
But he sat there as before.
………………….
So I sat before him helpless,
In an ecstasy of woe --
The mountain mists were rising fast,
The sun was sinking slow --
When a sudden inspiration came,
As sudden winds do blow.
I took my hat, I took my stick,
My load I settled fair,
I approached that awful incubus
With an absent-minded air --
And I walked directly through him,
As if he wasn't there!

21. OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE,
OR THE MAN-MADE WORLD
(1911)

22. Three spheres of life (5)
HUMAN
FEMALE
-- motherhood --
MALE
-- fatherhood --
Natural male
tendencies:
• Desire
• Combat
• Self-expression
Natural female
tendencies:
• Caring,
nurturing

23. Androcentric Culture
MALE FEMALE
• Desire
• Combat
• Self-
expression
• Caring,
nurturing
“Human” (the norm)
-- reserved for men
“Female” (sexed)

24. Androcentric Culture
MALE / HUMAN
FEMALE
• Desire
• Combat
• Self-
expression
• Caring,
nurturing
Culture, industry, art,
politics, intellectual work…
Home, family, domesticity

25. Periods of Human History
From Lester Ward, Pure Sociology (1903)
Now, and recorded
human history
Gynaeco-
centric
Andro-
centric
Human

26. Effects of Androcentric Culture
Male sexual
selection
Male-dominant
proprietary family
• Focus of family
becomes him
rather than
children
The Löbmann family, early 1900s, Flickr photo by Liz Lawley licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

27. Effects of Androcentric Culture
• Art, literature, industry & work

28. A Human Culture
“… the effort of this book is by no means to attribute a
wholly evil influence to men, and a wholly good one to
women; it is not even claimed that a purely feminine
culture would have advanced the world more successfully.
It does claim that the influence of the two together is
better than that of either one alone …” (Chpt. VI, p. 30;
not assigned)
Gynaeco-
centric
Andro-
centric
Human

29. A Human Culture
Neither male
nor female,
but accessible
equally to all
as humans
Democracy (ch. 10)
Society based on service, peace,
aiming at good for all (ch. 10)
People doing work they enjoy
(ch. 13)
Women doing sexual
selection; motherhood as
base of family (ch. 14)
BUT:
“… of the two
women are
more vitally
human than
the men” (63).

30. Is this the picture?
MALE FEMALE
• Desire
• Combat
• Self-
expression
• Caring,
nurturing
“Male” (sexed) “Human” (the norm)