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Publication Date
5-2018
Date of Final Oral Examination (Defense)
2-16-2018
Type of Culminating Activity
Thesis - Boise State University Access Only
Degree Title
Master of Arts in English, Literature
Department
English
Supervisory Committee Chair
Cheryl Hindrichs, Ph.D.
Supervisory Committee Member
Jacqueline O'Connor, Ph.D.
Supervisory Committee Member
Tara Penry, Ph.D.
Abstract
This thesis explores the pervasive and influential role nonhuman actors play in three of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short stories, “The Giant Wisteria,” “The Yellow Wall-paper,” and “The Rocking-Chair.” Using nonhuman theories from Bill Brown and feminist theories from scholars like Julia Kristeva and Gayle Rubin, I draw connections between the gothic nature of Gilman’s treatment of things, the aesthetic life those things take on through their patriarchal treatment, and the horror both women and objects can foster when they begin to mirror one another. Specifically, the nonhuman actors in my thesis can be understood as being part of the social fabric of the nineteenth-century world, and are given life through their associations with their surroundings. They are not necessarily autonomous, but in their connections to Victorian women, they provide spaces and sites of release, protest, empowerment, and safety. My thesis includes three chapters, each of which seeks to establish the connections between things and women in order to dismantle reader’s dualistic understandings of human/nonhuman and male/female.
DOI
10.18122/td/1389/boisestate
Recommended Citation
Hill, Chaney Elizabeth, "The Nonhuman Write Back: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Short Stories" (2018). Boise State University Theses and Dissertations. 1389.
10.18122/td/1389/boisestate