Abstract

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is one of the most distinguished feminists in the nineteenth century. She has published a great number of excellent works throughout her career. Being one of her masterpieces, “The Yellow Wallpaper” tells about a woman’s anxiety of writing. Since its publication, the short story has called much attention in the critical world and this thesis attempts to interpret “The Yellow Wallpaper” with the concept of “anxiety of authorship” as the theoretical support. In this short semi-autobiographic work, the writer describes a woman’s “anxiety of authorship” which results from the repression from the western patriarchal society. Through a close reading of the story and a biographical study of Gilman’s writing career, the thesis has concluded that women writers in the 19th century all suffered a lot from “anxiety of authorship” as they were deprived of the rights to write in the patriarchal society and further discussed the image of mad woman in Gilman’s writing as it seems to be only result for women if they chose to be writers in the 19th century.

Key Words: “anxiety of authorship”  “The Yellow Wallpaper”  patriarchy

摘 要

作为19世纪最杰出的的女性主义作家之一，夏洛特•普金斯•吉尔曼创作了众多优秀的女性文学作品。《黄色墙纸》是她的代表作之一，描述了一个女性作为作家的身份焦虑。自出版以来，该书引起了评论界的广泛关注。论文结合“作家身份焦虑”这一概念重新解读了《黄色墙纸》。女性的“作家身份焦虑”源于19世纪西方父权制度对女性写作意愿的忽视以及写作权利的剥夺。论文通过文本细读与作者生平研究相结合的方法重点探讨了19世纪西方社会女性写作焦虑的症结所在，即剥夺女性写作权利的父权制度，并通过分析吉尔曼笔下的疯女人形象着力揭露父权文化下女性写作的困境以及为了获取表达自我的权利而付出的沉重代价。

关键词：作家身份焦虑 《黄色墙纸》 父权主义

1 Introduction
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) is an important writer, theorist and socialist as well as one of the most important feminists in the first wave of feminist movement. She has published a great number of excellent works and won numerous literary awards throughout her writing career. Since it was published in 1892, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a semi-autobiographic work of Gilman, has called much attention in the critical world. Numerous critics focus on the study of symbolism, writing strategies, narrator image, feminism reflected in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and up to now, some scholars have discussed women’s “anxiety of authorship” in this fiction.