From: iroderic@alfred.carleton.ca (Ian Roderick)
Subject: Re: Marriage as Hell: Charlotte Perkins Gilman on TV
Organization: Carleton University
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 19:35:16 GMT

In <1992Sep11.073230.1915@bvc.edu> frantz@bvc.edu writes:

>In article <iroderic.716053120@cunews>, iroderic@alfred.carleton.ca (Ian Roderick) writes:
>> In <1992Sep8.120451.1892@bvc.edu> frantz@bvc.edu writes:
>> 
>> {excellent review deleted to save space}
>> 

>> 
>>>Andrea @ BVC
>> 
>> Just in case you don't have your answer yet (perhaps it was emailed) I
>> can give you the reference.
>> 
>> _The_Madwoman_in_the_Attic:_The_Woman_Writer_and_the_Nineteenth_Century_Literary_Imagination.
>> Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar
>> New Haven, Conn.: Yale U.P., 1979.
>> ISBN 0300022867
>> 
>> It is an anthology of literary criticism and well worth reading if you
>> are at all interested in how the production and consumption of the
>> novel has been gendered historically.  Another anthology you may find
>> useful would be:
>> 
>> _The_Female_Gothic_
>> Juliann E. Fleenor
>> Montreal: Eden Publishers, 1983
>> ISBN 0920792065
>> 
>> Ian


>Ian, thanks a bunch for the references.  I'll check them out.  Where am I 
>getting the connection between Madwoman in the Attic and the story Fiona 
>wrote about originally?  If it's literary criticism, I'm betting we're not 
>talking about plotline.  Is there a gothic piece out there that describes a 
>man who keeps his wife in the attic because she's "different" and 
>eventually drives her mad?  I know I've heard something of that plot before 
>and would be interested in uncovering the title.

>Andrea @ BVC

Andrea,

Well, "The Madwoman in the Attic" title is in part taking from what
the authors describe as the "doubling" of women in literature - you
know tha angel/whore dichotomy.  Anyway, as I recall the argument,
what makes the book stand out is the authors refusal to assume that it
is an either/or dichotomy.  Instead both sorts of poles are put in
play and worked through in a way that requires constant
re-articulation.  Oooh.  That wasn't very good.  Simply put, it is a
relationship of simultaneity rather than synthesis.

If I remember correctly, the title of the book foregrounds this
doubling by playing upon the title of Coventry Patmore's "The Angel in
the House" <1885>.

The other reason the title may have resonance for you is that it makes
evident the sort of spatialization in which men and women lived their
everyday lives in both the periods literature and culture in general.
Typical of the late 18th century and the 19th century, there was not
the sort of division between public and private for men and women many
historians have assumed.  Men did not only have the priviledge of
public life but also were very much envolved in the running of
households (as pater familias, of course).  The downstairs of the
private dwelling (of the middle and upper classes) was an intermediate
region.  It wasn't till the end of the nineteenth century that men of
gentlemanly status did most of their employment outside of the house.
With business associates and servants moving almost freely within the
downstairs, it is pretty much the mans domain.  The woman, on the
other hand occupied the upstairs.  She dwelled upstairs vascillating
between angel and madwoman.  The Gilman adaptation you saw provides an
excellent study of this sort of economy of knowledges and practices.

Ian

P.S.  Sorry for the slow response but my universities server is a bit
of an embarrasment and so keeps crashing with the beginning of term
demands.