The significance of a book may not come until many years after its initial release. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman was first dismissed by the critics of her time. It was not until many years later that critics and society would learn to understand her writing. One of the reasons it took so long for the importance of the “Yellow Wallpaper” to be recognized was because it brought to light the real unrealistic expectations women were facing during that time. Readers especially male at that time were not ready for that type of literature. Another possibility was that readers could not understand women’s struggles dealing with gender expectations. Unless they are women or are understanding of woman’s issues the reader will have a disconnect.
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Coming from a mimetic point of view where understanding is that the text teaches about gender, how well do these critiques address the importance of gender? By looking at both of these critics it’s clear to how Gilbert and Gubar makes a clear and precise argument than Kolodny does about the role gender plays in how the Yellow Wallpaper was received. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar wrote a critique called “The Yellow Wallpaper”. This critique helped society to realize the social impact of this story. When the “Yellow Wallpaper” was first published it receive bad reviews (261). The main argument in this article focused on looking into …show more content…
In her article “A Map for Rereading: Or, Gender and the Interpretation of Literary Texts” Kolodny talks about the difference between male and female readers. Kolondy says “Lacking familiarity with the women’s imaginative universe, that universe within which their acts are signs, the men in these stories can neither read nor comprehend the meanings of women closet to them- and this in spite of a common language” (201). Since the husband in Gilman’s story deems that his wife’s imagination is irrelevant he has a hard time understanding her concerns and problems. Despite the fact that the husband and wife both speak the same language he will never truly understand how she feels unless he learns her way of thinking. This could be one of the reasons that “The Yellow Wallpaper” was dismissed at first. Men could not imagine themselves as women dealing with mental illness and patriarchy. Also adding that Gilman “Predicted a female readership as yet unprepared for texts which mirrored back, with symbolic exemplariness, certain patterns underlying their empirical reality” (198). Showing that female readers during this time could potentially had a hard time understand Gillman because it reflected the reality of their life. Kolodny goes on to say, “If neither male nor female reading audiences were prepared to decode properly “The Yellow Wallpaper”, even less, Gilman
Coming from a mimetic point of view where understanding is that the text teaches about gender, how well do these critiques address the importance of gender? By looking at both of these critics it’s clear to how Gilbert and Gubar makes a clear and precise argument than Kolodny does about the role gender plays in how the Yellow Wallpaper was received. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar wrote a critique called “The Yellow Wallpaper”. This critique helped society to realize the social impact of this story. When the “Yellow Wallpaper” was first published it receive bad reviews (261). The main argument in this article focused on looking into …show more content…
In her article “A Map for Rereading: Or, Gender and the Interpretation of Literary Texts” Kolodny talks about the difference between male and female readers. Kolondy says “Lacking familiarity with the women’s imaginative universe, that universe within which their acts are signs, the men in these stories can neither read nor comprehend the meanings of women closet to them- and this in spite of a common language” (201). Since the husband in Gilman’s story deems that his wife’s imagination is irrelevant he has a hard time understanding her concerns and problems. Despite the fact that the husband and wife both speak the same language he will never truly understand how she feels unless he learns her way of thinking. This could be one of the reasons that “The Yellow Wallpaper” was dismissed at first. Men could not imagine themselves as women dealing with mental illness and patriarchy. Also adding that Gilman “Predicted a female readership as yet unprepared for texts which mirrored back, with symbolic exemplariness, certain patterns underlying their empirical reality” (198). Showing that female readers during this time could potentially had a hard time understand Gillman because it reflected the reality of their life. Kolodny goes on to say, “If neither male nor female reading audiences were prepared to decode properly “The Yellow Wallpaper”, even less, Gilman