The first unit I designed with this model acquainted the class with feminist criticism, which they then applied in their reading of Charlotte Perkins-Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” This was a very rich unit in terms of analyzing paired texts: I introduced feminist criticism through a theoretical text (an excerpt from A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf). I then offered some historical and biographical details through an article later written by Perkins-Gilman, entitled “Why I Wrote ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper.’”
I can’t downplay this text’s value in stoking my students’ indignation; it’s a powerful motivator and definitely instilled this new mode of interpretation with a vitality and relevance. But I decided to capitalize on this response by working it into a touchstone formative assessment of their understanding of feminist criticism. After reading this review, I tasked the class with writing their own letter to the editor responding to M.D.’s argument, bearing in mind what we’ve learned about feminist criticism so far from Virginia Woolf, historical background and resources I offered, and our class discussions.
This proved to be a very valuable assignment, as this model of responding to an argument largely mirrors the way I want students to work with literary texts: with urgency and assertiveness, rolling up their sleeves and digging into the text. Without my specifying, most students quoted the original letter in their refutation, effectively incorporating evidence in developing their own counter-argument. I watched as elements from Woolf and our subsequent debrief cropped up again and again in responses, showing that this theoretical thought had been incorporated into an internal framework that students were using to interpret text.
Several students picked up on the paternalistic tone of the letter and criticized the author’s couching of his own distaste toward a woman’s work in a false concern for women “whose lives have been touched through the nearest ties by this dread disease.” One student wrote:
Dear M.D.,
You may think that what you’re doing is helpful towards society but it’s actually criticizing women. The story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is told to show what we women go through…
… Honestly, the discovery of these diseases was just a systematic way to keep women in their place. Look at the people diagnosing these women. They were all men that needed to be confident in their superiority…
Dear M.D.,
Recently you published an article where you stated that “The Yellow Wall-Paper” was “deadly peril.” I believe that it was in fact the complete opposite. The Yellow Wall-Paper served as an emancipator for women who were suppressed and inhibited by male dominators who believed physical and mental exertion led to lunacy. Charlotte Perkins Gilman articulated that her main reasoning for publishing this work was to prove that being antagonistic to the doctors orders ultimately allowed her to recover “some measure of power…”