¶ … Yellow Wallpaper,' the nameless narrator is compelled by those that surround her to spend time in a colonial mansion in order to rest and get well. The opposite happens; we see her descend into madness in a way that is vaguely reminiscent of the main character in 'The Shining.' We are given the sense of a controlled environment, in which a narrator is placed by male figures representing authority and familiarity (doctors: her husband and brother) in a situation where she is condemned to stare at a wall. The response of her subconscious is embodied in the changes she perceives in the character of the wall.
She sees a yellow female woman trying to break free of the wall, which we interpret to represent the constrained parameters of her activity. She is a complete subordinate, dominated by men who possess professional accolades. Her attitudes mirror those we see in Ibsen novels; that of an overgrown child that is not quite able to make decisions for herself. Her sense of free will is embodied in the mysterious character that lurks behind the wallpaper, threatening to invade her world and disrupt her stability.
In this novel, set in Victorian times, our perspective of women is narrowed to these two entities. One is seen as the id of the other, the subconscious desire for independence. The narrator is seen as a flawed character whose ideas and opinions are seen as the result of her condition....
In many ways, this is not only a critique of male authority but also a critique of conventional ideas of dementia and the categorization of radical opinions as those that reflect some malady. The authorities have complete authority over their own actions; they remind us of the clergy responsible for diagnosing women as being witches in the 17th century. The narrator's sublimation is seen as being as important to her sanctioned captors as her recovery; a device designed to mask the arbitrary approach to medicine employed by late 19th century doctors. These are in fact allegorical for all social forces constraining women.
Susan Cahn's work reflects on the self-identity of lesbians; in it she questions both the relevance and the valence of certain social activities generally associated with lesbians and with 'mannish' women. She takes time to question whether or not these connote a social constraint on the female identity. Her ideas reflect those first introduced to the world of critical theory by Simone de Beauvoir in 'The Second Sex.' However, Cahn extends de Beauvoir's premises to queer theory, questioning the way that lesbians are perceived as behaving in a social setting.
Cahn's focus is on the world of female sports. In many sports, female athletic prowess is seen as connoting 'mannishness;' implying that one cannot be a true woman without embodying characteristics traditionally…
