The imprisoned double
The imprisoned double

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses feminist theories of psychoanalysis used by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The article will highlight, among others, the ways in which gender roles are reflected in American literature in texts written by women who have had schizophrenic, depressive and hysterical mental diseases as part of their lives as well. The yellow wallpaper is symbolic of The Cult of True Womanhood, which binds women to home and family. It represents the character’s state of mind, the way women were viewed in the nineteenth century patriarchal society, the narrator’s own identity and the media of the time. The analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s text focuses on the ambivalence of the main character’s struggle with her womanhood and her shifting consciousness by focusing on the transformative power of the double that promotes progressive concepts of womanhood.

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