20281

Unreliable Narrator Trapped in her Narrative: Absence of Meaning in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Bu makale, Gilman’ın “Sarı Duvar Kağıdı” adlı eserinde anlatının belirsizliğini ve güvenilezliğini gösteren unsurları irdelenmektedir. Kısa hikaye çoğunlukla dilin ürünü olan bir edebiyat kurgusu ve yazarın bir kimlik tanımlaması olarak görülür. Güvenilmezlik ise, dilbilim sistemlerinin dıflına çıkıldığında oluflan bir kavramdır. Kelimeler durağan yapılar olmadığı için, aslında kendi içinde bir güvenilmezliği de barındırmaktadır. Anlatıcının kulllandığı kelimeler üzerinden kendi kimlik tanımı bu sebeple tartıflmalı hale gelmektedir. “Sarı Duvar Kağıdı” adlı eserin yazarı da, kendi kimliğini bulmak adına yola çıktığı eserinde sonunda çıkmaza girer. Sonsuz dilbilimsel zincirleme içinde bir betimleyiciden diğerine hareket ederek, aslında yazar kendine “metaforik” bir dünya yaratmakta ve kendi deyimiyle bir “rahatlama” sağlamaktadır. Yazarın 19 yy. erkek-egemen toplumun baskısına maruz kalmıfl olması, kendini “tavan arasına atılmıfl deli kadın” olarak tanımlamasına yol açmıfltır. Öykünün iyi ifllenmifl bakıfl açısı da, yazarın bilinç ötesi kurguladığı mecaz dil kullanımını daha etkili hale getirmektedir. Sonuçta bu makale; kurgu ve kimlik arasındaki iliflkinin aslında olmayan bir iliflki olduğunu irdelemektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

anlatıcının güvenilmezliği, anlatı, farklılaşma, kimlik, “Sarı Duvar Kağıdı”

Unreliable Narrator Trapped in her Narrative: Absence of Meaning in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

The present article tries to examine the elements of unreliability and uncertainty in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” as a narrative. Short story is seen as any other literary work, a ‘construct’, a product of language. Unreliability is a result of differentiation within a linguistic system. Thus, words never achieve stability, and the question is “can the narrator of the words be a reliable one?” The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” struggles to find a true ‘self’ by making a narrative in which she seems stuck in the end. Moving from one signifier to another, through a linguistic chain which is potentially infinite the narrator creates a ‘metaphorical’ world of language which she calls a “relief.” Oppressed in the, 19th century masculine world, she gives an account of herself by narrating her story in which she turns to be a ‘mad woman in the attic’. The story’s perfect point of view is also considered effective since it takes the reader to the narrator’s figurative language which seems unconscious. The paper, thus, aims to study the ‘narrative’ and the ‘self’ construction which both seem to fail in the work.

PDF

___

Armitt, Lucie. Theorising the Fantastic (New York: Arnold, 1996).
Bennett, Andrew and Nicholas Royle. An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (New York: Prentice Hall, 1995).
Davis, Colin. After Poststructuralism: Reading Stories and Theory (London: Routledge, 2004).
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983).
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings (New York: Bantam Classic Book, 1982).
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper” The Forerunner, October Issue, (1913), pp.1-3.
Green, Keit and Jill LeiBihan. Critical Theory and Practice: A Coursebook (London: Routledge, 1996). Hawkes, Terence. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics (London: Routledge, 1983).
Murton, Michelle Mock. “Behind the “barred windows”: The Imprisonment of Women’s Bodies and Mindsin Nineteenth - Century America,” WILLA, IV (1995), pp.22-26. Norris, Christopher. Deconstruction: Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 1988).
Rheingold, Beth Snyder. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”: A Poetics of the Inside, retrieved from: http://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/snyder.htm.
Schwartz, Lynne Sharon. Introduction to The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings, in Perkins Gilman (New York: Batman Classic Book, 1984).
Selden, Raman. Practicing Theory and Reading Literature: An Introduction (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989).
Taylor, E. Victor and Charles E. Winquist. Encyclopedia of Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 2001). Wolfreys, Julian. Introducing Criticism at the 21th Century (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002).
Wolfreys, Julian and William Baker. Literary Theories: A Case Study in Critical Performance (London: Macmillan Press, 1996).