Cilt 9 Sayı 65 (2021)

Araştırma Makalesi

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’ın Sarı Duvar Kağıdı Eserine Liberal Feminist Bir Yaklaşım

Yayımlandı 30.10.2021

Cilt 9 Sayı 65 kapak

Abstract

A Liberal Feminist Approach to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s the Yellow Wallpaper

Patriarchal society gives legal rights and economic power to men so that women are subject to men and imprisoned in private sphere. When women who are given the role of a wife and mother begin to demand freedom and legal rights, the basis of feminism appears. This study applies liberal feminist approach to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) in order to analyse the gender roles in terms of patriarchal ideology of separate spheres. After giving birth to a baby, the narrator who is the main character at the same time is diagnosed with hysteria by her husband John who is a physician. She is also prescribed a ‘rest cure’ for three months in the attic of an isolated house. The ‘rest cure’ causes her obsession with the yellow wallpaper and slowly drives her mad due to the limitation of thinking and of raising the consciousness of female in private sphere. To be imprisoned in a room may have enormous risks of disappointment, madness, and suicide. In order to limit a woman’s participation in the intellectual and public sphere, masculine science of nineteenth century’s patriarchal society converts ‘an angel in the house’ into ‘the madwoman in the attic’ under the name of ‘rest cure’. Gilman suggests that a woman can free herself if her financial conditions are radically changed through finally installing a dialectical movement between private sphere and public sphere.

Keywords Liberal feminism, women’s position, separate spheres, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

Öz

Ataerkil toplum, kadınların erkeklere tabi olması ve özel alanda hapsedilmesi için sadece erkeklere yasal haklar ve ekonomik güç verir. Sadece eş ve anne rolü verilen kadınlar özgürlük ve yasal haklar talep etmeye başlayınca feminizmin temeli atılmış olur. Bu çalışma, liberal feminist yaklaşımını Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Sarı Duvar Kağıdı (1892) eserine uygulayarak ayrı alanların ataerkil ideolojisi açısından toplumsal cinsiyet rollerini analiz eder. Bir bebek dünyaya getirdikten sonra anlatıcıya-ana karaktere, doktor olan kocası John tarafından histeri teşhisi konur. Ayrıca kendisine izole edilmiş bir evin çatı katında üç ay süreyle bir ‘yatak istirahati’ reçete edilir. ‘Yatak istirahati’, onun sarı duvar kağıdı takıntısına neden olur ve düşünmenin sınırlılığı ve kadının özel alanda bilincini yükseltmesinin kısıtlanması nedeniyle onu yavaş yavaş delirtir. Bir odaya hapsolmak hayal kırıklığı, delilik ve intihar gibi çok büyük riskler taşır. On dokuzuncu yüzyılın ataerkil toplumunun eril bilimi, kadının entelektüel ve kamusal alana katılımını sınırlamak için ‘evdeki meleği’, ‘yatak istirahati’ adı altında ‘tavan arasındaki deliye’ dönüştürür. Gilman, bir kadının ancak yaşamının maddi koşulları kökten değiştirilirse ve özel alan ile kamusal alan arasında diyalektik bir hareket kurulursa kendini özgürleştirebileceğini öne sürer.

Anahtar Kelimeler Liberal feminizm, kadının konumu, ayrı alanlar, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sarı Duvar Kağıdı

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Kaynakça

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