While transcribing the minutes from the 90th meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, dated November 7, 1893, I found myself reading pieces from the past that had been translated by various club members. Examples include a poem called “Shipwrecked,” translated from French to English by Mrs. Latimer, as well as Mrs. Volck’s translation of an essay, written in German by a Professor Rümelin. The recording secretary, Lydia Crane, included the content of these translations while applauding the talent of the translators themselves. In referring to the difficulties of translating, she stated “while many ideas are common to man everywhere, we must take into account that authors of other times and other nations have addressed their contemporaries and their compatriots.” This resonated with me in the sense that, though we speak the same language and live in the same nation as these women, much time has passed since the club’s conception and dissolution; ideas have evolved and attitudes have shifted. Through reading these meeting minutes, it became evident that we are truly living in a different world. Further, the act of transcribing and editing these entries is a unique variation of translation, as the individuals working on this project are responsible communicating this rich history with the modern world.
Ideology Trapping Women Behind “The Yellow Wall-Paper”
Shining a light on the gender ideology “trapped” within Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is what I intend to do in this blog post. The domain in which women were apart of in 19th century America is described through the doctrine of separate spheres. This created a constraining form of gender ideology that both sexes were forced to comply to because of the way society treated them. The doctrine of separate spheres is an old common law principle, that depicts men living out their lives in the public eye. They are at “home” in the workplace and take pride making changes in the government and in general community life. Females on the other hand are living in their own private sector. Where women belong is in the home keeping all opinions to themselves while making life easier for everyone around them, no matter what their own personal feelings towards the matter are. This type of segregated society causes women live by certain unwritten rules and regulations. Gilman uses many words and symbols to help further prove her point of gender ideology trapping women behind wall paper. I admire the symbolic nature of this text and thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
The use of the word sin to describe the wall paper helps prove that it symbolizes gender ideology. The main character gives a detailed account of the wall paper by saying it “commits an artistic sin” (Gilman 487). The ideal characteristics of women in the 19th century are purity, piety, and domesticity. Purity and piety are both terms that are often associated with religion, the word sin also shares that same correlation. Here Gilman uses an interesting choice of language. The wall paper represents ideology; this specific form of ideology is closely related to a woman being angelic. Therefore, relating the wall paper to a sin is strongly contradicting the ideas behind a woman’s role in the doctrine of separate spheres society. The use of sin shines an extremely negative light upon participating in the ideology, epically since these women of the 19th century pride themselves on fitting the criteria of someone who is pious and pure.
The color of the wall paper is a symbol for how old and outdated the doctrine of separate spheres is regarding women’s position in society. Yellow, which is the color of the wall paper, represents something that is old and decaying. Jane speaks about the color by saying how it is “repellent, almost revolting” (Gilman 487). She also says it is “unclean” (Gilman 487) and “faded” (Gilman 487). Yellowing of the skin happens when a human is becoming old. Paper also yellows over time. The wall paper being yellow represents how the idea that women must be confined to the household and have no position in the public domain is outdated. This old world common law is something that needs to be changed. The yellow wall paper needs to be stripped and a fresh coat of paint needs to replace it.
The yellow wall paper being studied, actualized, and finally torn down symbolizes the journey that women are going to have to go through to break from the 19th century gender ideology. The wall paper entrapping women behind it displays the sovereignty that the doctrine of separate spheres had over the women of 1893. These females felt trapped and the only way to break from the vicious cycle of being a housewife is to band together and stand up for your own rights. The inspiring message behind this story conveyed through descriptive symbolic language motivated the women of the 19th century to take a stand and break the mold.
Works Cited:
Stetson, Charlotte Perkins. “The Literature of Prescription.” The Yellow Wall-Paper, www.nlm.nih.gov/theliteratureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf.
Gender Distinction in “Proem”: Abuse of Consciousness or Act of God?
“Proem” proposes that the distinction of gender within humanity came with Original Sin rather than creation. Initially both called “man”, men and women were considered equal; however, with The Fall of Man came the distinction of gender due to corruption of consciousness. Man constrained woman, “…that she should leave him never;”, and “weak still he kept her, lest she be strong and flee;” (stanza 7). “Proem” suggests that the sociological influence man had over woman created a polarization of gender which exists solely through psychological constraints and power-abuse. The most striking line, “And he never once hath seen her since the pre-historic time!” proposes the illegitimacy of gender distinctions which assume one sex as the dominant (stanza 9). The subordination of woman exists due to a psychological fear which created an “other”. If man saw woman as she was in “the pre-historic time” (here meaning the Prehistoric Era but also before consciousness and sexual distinction), he would realize the fundamental equality which all humans, regardless of gender, possess. Woman is deemed lesser not because of legitimate factors or value-based judgments but due to the fear inspired by Original Sin and abuse of consciousness. Beginning Women and Economics with this “Proem” suggests that gender lines and expectations exist arbitrarily rather than by act of God; this inspires readers to question the economic and social subordination of women described in the following chapters.
Trapped within Wallpaper.
There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will” (Stetson, 652).
For this week’s blog post, I wanted to discuss Charlotte Perkins Stetson’s story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” The above excerpt is what I believe to be the focal point of Ms. Stetson’s psychological horror tale. The story itself not only acts as a critique of the role of women in marriage but also suggests a rigid distinction between an active working male and a ignored, patronized and misjudged female.
I do not believe it is a coincidence that the woman who the narrator believes is trapped within the wallpaper is also trapped behind a pattern; this is because the narrator is trapped as well. Before the merge between the woman behind the sickly-looking paper and the narrator, both characters are trapped within their own type of prison – whether it be the yellow-patterned wallpaper or the prison-like cycle that women were trapped within in the 19th Century. The lives of women during this time were tailored to a rigid lifestyle such as being domestic wives to a family. The gender division shown between the husband John and his wife keeps the narrator contained within a child-like state of ignorance that withholds her from developing herself beyond the strict trajectory she is forced to follow day in and day out.
The wallpaper itself is an object that drives the narrator to analyze it as something which needs to be interpreted. At the start of the story, it is apparent that the narrator simply finds it “dull” and “revolting.” The pattern itself is what provokes study and constantly irritates her. Further within the story, the narrator discovers a second, underlying pattern within the wallpaper which is interpreted as a woman who is desperately trying to escape from her own prison. The wallpaper itself seems to be portraying many qualities of the structure of 19th Century lifestyle such as tradition and a cycle of patterns that were meant to be followed. The domestic and vicious cycle that women were to follow during this time is cleverly portrayed by a grotesque, psychological horror tale that creates an affinity between the narrator and the “unclean yellow” wallpaper.
Works Cited:
Stetson, Charlotte Perkins. “The Literature of Prescription.” The Yellow Wall-Paper, www.nlm.nih.gov/theliteratureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf.
When a class is just a twinkle in a professor’s eye
Bizarrely, today in my Facebook feed a “timeline memory” post popped up from 4 years ago, sharing a Loyola Magazine story that describes research on the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore done by Courtney Cousins ’14 for a course I taught on the History of the Novel in the US in Fall 2013. Courtney’s project was the genesis of this semester’s class. I thought you all might enjoy this bit of hyper-local history.
And to complete the circle, the author of the Loyola Magazine article, Brigid Hamilton, took one of the first seminars I taught here at Loyola … back in 2003 or 2004, I think. It was on the History of the Book in America, a pre-cursor to the History of the Novel in the US class that Courtney took in 2013.
History repeats itself, as they say!
Hey hey, the class begins!
Faithful subscribers may have noted a sudden flourishing of postings to the Aperio Log. That’s because the spring semester at Loyola has begun—and at long last, so has our class on the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore. The course has the auspicious number EN389 and is titled in the online course catalog, “Reading Women, Writing Women, 1890-1920: The Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore.”
Our class met for the first time last night in the, shall we say, cozy seminar room in Loyola’s English Department. We had a great time discussing some stories from Anne Boyd Rioux’s wonderful anthology Wielding the Pen: Writings on Authorship by American Women of the Nineteenth Century—including Emily Dickinson’s “I’m nobody–who are you?,” Mary Wilkins Freeman’s “The Poetess” (1890) and Constance Fenimore Woolson’s “Miss Grief” (1880), as well as Edith Wharton’s painfully comic story about “Writing a War Story” (1919). The thought-provoking posts from Ellen, Sydney, Katie, Clara, & Hunter posted to plant seeds for our discussion give you a good idea of the range of ideas and responses.
We were also graced by a visit from our volunteer researcher and assiduous transcriber, Cynthia, whom only Clara had met before last night. Cynthia first put the WLCB papers on the radar of archivists and libraries in the 1970s when she was tasked, as a graduate student and fledgling archivist, with finding “hidden collections” of women’s writings in archives across the country. Unfortunately, no one until us had answered her clarion call for over 40 years.
Cynthia had wonderful stories to tell about her work in archives as well as some piquant observations about her recent interactions with the Club as a transcriber. One story she mentioned was about founding member Louisa C. O. Haughton’s horror when she presented the documents to incorporate the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore to the notary public, and he mistakenly read the name as the “Woman’s Liberty Club.”
“We are not seeking freedom!” she said (I think I am horribly paraphrasing and will revise this once I am reminded of what she actually said. ETA: see comments for the actual quotation.). The majority of the Club members were ambitious, but sadly, not suffragist revolutionaries.
For those of you following our activities, I have posted the course overview and syllabus to this blog (under the “About” tab). Also, check out the WLCB Archive, which Clara and I developed last semester with much appreciated assistance from folks at the Loyola/Notre Dame Library. Over the next few weeks, you’ll be introduced to the dozen or so new members of the project– new students to the EN389 course at Loyola, and a new group of 8 seniors at Friends who will be transcribing the minutes detailing the activities of the Club during World War I.
To close this post with the epigraph which began our class last night, Emily Dickinson encapsulated many of the ideas of women’s ambivalent desire to reach an audience in print, as well as women writers’ need to establish a supportive audience among one another, in the following poem. It’s emblematic, in many ways, of this group of Baltimore women who sought recognition as writers and intellects but were feared the glare of public exposure.
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
Literacy and power
In preparation for the Reading Women, Writing Women English class that will continue this summer’s research on the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, I read the first chapter of Gere’s Intimate Practices book entitled “Literacy and Intimacy.” The chapter begins with quotes from different woman’s clubs’ minutes then goes into the history behind literacy in the United States. Apparently, in the 1880s, the United States began restricting immigration access to the country, and used literacy as a test to determine whether or not an individual was fit to enter the US. If the individual passed the literacy test, they may be permitted entrance. Gere continues to explain that women used literacy to create what is called an “imagined community” because it is a community that is not determined by the physical location of the women but constitutes a type of intellectual community.
The role that literacy played in this point in history is two-fold. On one hand, it was used to exclude a certain group of people who were deemed unfit due to their lack of US-approved literacy. On the other hand, literacy was a standard that brought a lot of women together in a time when women are still considered inferior to men. These women were not yet even allowed to vote, yet they formed these communities of like-minded individuals to read, write, and share their thoughts and works with one another. Like with many aspects of the Woman’s Literacy Club, this association between literacy and power gives me pause. In many cases, the question of literacy was used to strip power from people who could be considered disadvantaged. However, literacy gave power to many women and allowed them to find their voices in a time that did not necessarily always want to listen to what women had to say. This is something I look forward to exploring further this semester as we once again take to the archives to uncover the history of the Woman’s Literacy Club of Baltimore.