Murton behind the barred windows

Poe's "never more" is the American prototype to Milton's patriarchal, restrictive "bogey" applied to imprison English women. Exactly three decades later, in A Room of One's Own , Virginia Woolf would defend women against misogynist ideologues much as Gilman did across the shore, using quintessentially the same metaphorical analogy of imprisonment and "barred windows" to describe women's restricted view and place in patriarchal society by declaring that women must "look past Milton's bogey, for no human being should shut out the view" Anthony, like Woolf later, presented a countervoice against Poe's raven and Milton's bogey.

Stanton wrote: "She [Anthony] still never loses an occasion to de fend coeducation and prohibition, and solves every difficulty with the refrain, woman suffrage, as persistent as the 'never more' of Poe's raven" Despite men's attempts to imprison women as a sex, Stanton and others chose to fight for liberty and equality, thereby rejecting death, intellectual or otherwise.

Certainly, women's attire was a definite hazard to women's health and an impetus to invalidism. In her text, What to Wear? Elizabeth Stuart Phelps revealed the deadly truth behind colloquialisms that denoted fashionably attired women.

Phelps saw conventions of embodiment as insidious habits to be fixed, to attract their distinct attention. There never was a serpent that did not hide and crawl under foot" So extreme and prominent were these conventions that women came to believe their strength virtually relied upon their weaknesses, complying and enslaving themselves to keep up with fashion.

Archard railed against the notion of invalidism enforced upon supplicating and complicitious women: Woman's weakness indeed!. And what more claim to our admiration has a woman who, in a manner, paralyzes herself, and starves every drop of good, red blood out of her body? The lovely creatures who choke the breath out of themselves, eat chalk and pickles, and drink vinegar, are to be counted by the hundred.

So ground into the souls of women is this notion of the exceeding beauty of woman's weakness, that there are those who think it isn't pretty to exert every scanty strength they have.

Helen Gilbert Ecob, whose study, The Well-Dressed Woman , outlines the debilitating physical, psychological, and moral effects of fashion, echoed Archard's views. Advocating equal rights for women in all realms, Ecob inverted the essentializing notion of "true womanhood," emphasizing strength instead of weakness; she perceived physical reformation as women's only means of escaping her genteel imprisonment.

Ecob believed that "since physical weakness handicaps woman's activities, bars the way to higher education and hinders the development of many noble traits of character, it follows that an important step in the attainment of true womanhood lies in the direction of physical reformation" Regarding the "woman question," Phillips foregrounded the maternal, one of the essences of the "true woman," noting "I will not enlarge now on another most important aspect of this question, the value of the contemplated change in a physiological point of view.

Our dainty notions have made woman such a hot-house plant, that one half the sex are invalids. The mothers of the next generation are invalids But I leave this sad topic for other hands" 29 Other feminists took up the cause. Noting the effects of a weakened body on the mind, Ecob reminded her readers that these were ideo logical constructs, not inherent traits of the sex.

Male ideologies supported and encouraged fashions and behaviors that imprisoned women; indeed, these men and women who slavishly carried out their ideologies created a domesticated death for women. Ecob noted: Invalidism or semi-invalidism is the rule. Even a condition of passive health, or the absence of active disease, is seldom seen.

Health in its highest sense, which signifies exuberance of spirit and both vital and moral energy, is almost unknown. The decline from strength to weakness has been so gradual that we have been hardly conscious of the process, and weakness is accepted as a legitimate condition. To assert that this state of invalidism is preordained for the female race is an impeachment of Divine justice.

We are forced to the belief that it is the result of false principles and methods of living. To demystify patriarchal ideology, Ecob felt, was the only means to advance women's equal rights. She quoted Dr. Dio Lewis who agreed with her: "The popular notion that the ill health of our women is natural must be overcome" Undoubtedly, the greatest danger to women's health was the corset, a patriarchal cage Phelps nominalized as "that strait jacket--worthy of an invention of an Alva" The corset distorted and deformed woman's natural body, transforming the female body into an hour-glass figure, a grotesquely exaggerated symbol of fertility, reproductivity, and nurturing specularized for patriarchal gaze.

To raise the bust and to enlarge the stomach resulted in compressed organs in the abdominal area, reducing the woman's waist to a minuscule circumference. This distortion of women's physical proportions deformed and damaged internal organs. Woman's breathing was so severely affected that as Phelps noted, "her lungs con tract and ache, and her breath comes in uneasy gasps" The corseted woman breathlessly spoke, as Isabella Bird noted, in the "weak, rapid accents of consumption" Indeed, in the fifteenth century when corsets were composed of steel and had busks of wood , a physician of the period linked the breathless corset-wearer to the consumptive.

Corseted women, he claimed, "purchase a stinking breath.. The nineteenth-century corset, often comprised of whale bones and laces, reduced the waist anywhere from "three to fifteen inches," its extreme pressure impairing lung capacity and pushing other organs downward Ecob Robert L. Dickinson estimated that the corset's continual pres sure was as "few" as thirty-five pounds of pressure from a loose corset to a greater pressure of eighty-eight pounds; this oppression was inflicted upon a woman throughout all her waking hours In addition to impaired breathing, the corset also adversely affected the liver and heart.

Indeed, "tight lace liver" became a common occurrence among corseted women. Autopsies showed livers so altered in shape and so completely lacerated due to tight lacing that serrations from the lacing cut a furrow into the liver deeply enough to cut the organ nearly in two Ecob Further, pressure from the corset impaired the heart's capacity to measure blood flow.

Undoubtedly, nineteenth-century ladies"'swooning" occurred as a result of restricted blood flow, not from romantic ideals. The spine, too, was affected by daily corset wearing.

Trall who saw "[s]pinal distortion [as] one of the ordinary consequences of lacing. The muscles being unbalanced become flabby or contracted, un able to support the trunk of the body erect, and a curvature, usually a double curvature, of the spine is the consequence" Not surprisingly, when a woman decided to discard her corsets for emancipation, her undisciplined muscles and over-exerted organs rebelled.

Phelps warned her readers to beware, for initially, "a greater sense of discomfort grows upon you" after the corset is first abandoned After escaping imprisonment, Phelps incites her readers to bum their corsets and not deceive themselves with false philanthropy, giving "in the sacred name of charity" the hateful object to another woman, enslaving her in the very "chains from which you have yourself escaped" Let life be healthy, pure, all of a piece" Certainly, physical health was not the sole issue at hand.

To discard the corset was to gain emancipation and autonomy. Ecob recognized "[d]eep breathing as a powerful psychical force" 61 , and Phelps believed that while a woman "breathes, she thinks, suspects" Compounding weight in conjunction with the corset to women's already overburdened frame were the heavy, starched muslin and flannel petticoats worn beneath long, trailing skirts which accumulated the additional weight of mud throughout the day.

In addition, tight collars and garters to hold up hose threatened to cut off circulation. Tight-waisted clothing with thick, heavily corded waists, often worn by young girls, were marked as "incipient corsets" by Ecob and others Ecob knew that physically restrictive wear was also restrictive of autonomy and independence. According to Ann J. The opening setting describes how the unnamed narrator, her husband, John, and their baby have recently moved into a rented mansion, which she finds eerie.

This is the first of many unhappy sentiments expressed by the narrator, conveying how severely dissatisfied she is with the expectations imposed upon her by society, and more importantly, by her husband.

As part of the treatment plan he has devised, including a tranquil environment and undisturbed rest for a few months, John has the audacity to draw up a daily schedule for his wife, to which she is fully expected to adhere.

In addition to feeling bored, unchallenged, and disillusioned, the narrator is clearly suffering from post-partum depression. This is evidenced by her physiological and psychological symptoms, and in her journal writing when she states that though she has a fondness for her baby, she has little tolerance for his presence.

In an age when women's depression was rarely openly acknowledged, Gilman makes it the focal point of her story. This statement conveys a sense of irony, for the distraught woman's greatest need is for John to spend less time away from home, and more time listening to her, so that she can make him understand it is freedom she needs.

He thereby worsens his wife's condition by keeping her isolated, and making her feel completely worthless, especially since she is not expected to care for their house or their child. When the narrator becomes aware that she is caught in a downward spiral towards madness, she attempts to have a serious conversation about her condition with her husband.

This transfers the blame to her for bringing about her own sorry state, and at the same time places the responsibility on her to make herself better. John, in his misguided attempt to help his wife, becomes, rather, the biggest hindrance to her recovery.

The author went through a similar situation in her own life, but with an outcome far different. Though today this would be considered astoundingly sexist advice, it was commonly reflected in the literature of this time period that men assumed any stress in a woman's life was the direct result of her having acted outside of her domestic sphere. That Gilman does not give her story a happy ending is far more effective, in terms of having a strong impact on the reader.

Though in her own life she gained back her autonomy by ceasing to seek the counsel of her doctor and divorcing her husband, she strategically chose not to include those actions in The Yellow Wallpaper. By having the protagonist lose her sanity profoundly illustrates the peril of not fighting for one's rights as a human being, and effectively leaves it to the reader to take from the story what he or she may. The Yellow Wallpaper poignantly teaches women that though they may feel isolated and abnormal, their experience is not singular.

This realization alone can be liberating. Gilman knew that her intent would speak loud and clear to the unsatisfied women in the world who so desperately needed to receive a message of hope.

However, as Gilman's views were ahead of her time, the appreciation of her fans was not reflected in the literary criticism this story initially received. Had either Charlotte Bronte or Charlotte Perkins Gilman chosen to publish essays blatantly criticizing gender politics, rather than filtering their progressive messages through these fictional narratives, the backlash would have been far more severe, to the point of being detrimental to their reputations and careers.

Instead, by disguising the true intention in the subtext, both Jane Eyre and The Yellow Wallpaper were able to achieve the authors' desired effect. In this way, though the women's movement was not begun in earnest until many decades after these works were published, Bronte and Gilman played their parts in initiating the movement by covertly providing readers with a new form of conduct and code of ethics to contemplate, and eventually manifest. Her area of specialization is 19th c.

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Introduction by Erica Jong. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of The Barred Window. Feb 08, Kathleen Hagen added it Shelves: audio-books , mysteries. Thomas Penmarsh has lived in the estate house Fenisterre by the sea all of his life. Thomas meets Isabelle, has sex with her one night when they were drugged on LSD and she becomes pregnant.

They marry and have a daughter. Then, through mysterious circumstances which Thomas never totally explains to us, Isabelle falls down the tairs and dies, and the baby, Alice, is adopted by someone else. Then Alice, whom neither of them has seen for 26 years, decides to come for a visit. Things get very tense, as Esmond is trying to convince Thomas to sell the house, whereas Alice wants him to keep it so she can inherit it.

Finally things come to a climax and something happens. And that is the beauty of the story and of other Taylor stand-alones. You think you know the family involved, but do you really?

Highly recommended. View 1 comment. Jan 07, Elisabeth rated it really liked it Shelves: crime-fiction. A seriously creepy book -- with a twist near the end which I did guess -- though I'm still not sure what happened right at the end! Very different from his Lydmouth series. Mar 28, Jill Clark rated it liked it. It had a good build up, but the ending was disappointing. Sep 22, ctdak rated it it was ok. This novel was originally published in I have read all three of these Penguin reprints now and I have to say that this one is the least engaging of the three.

While the style of writing is very good, I think most people would nonetheless give up on this one part way through. The Raven on the Water is definitely more interesting. This author also has two British detective series. Dec 11, Heidi rated it liked it Shelves: audible-unabridged , written-review. It is a strange thing that Andrew Taylor can coexist in this world with Beatrix Potter. No, never mind Beatrix Potter; even in their childrens' books the English display an acerbic edge, which is why most Americans have never really understood the true Mary Poppins, preferring to visualize her as the syrupy version presented by Walt Disney rather than the ambiguous and even vaguely threatening persona she actually is.

So let's say, coexist in the same world as Mary Louise Alcott, where humankind It is a strange thing that Andrew Taylor can coexist in this world with Beatrix Potter. So let's say, coexist in the same world as Mary Louise Alcott, where humankind, while not perfect, strides unequivocally for good. In Andrew Taylor's world, it is a given that humankind is fatally flawed, selfish and self-interested, and it is those who part from that ethos who are unusual.

I have a feeling that this view is particularly prevalent in Taylor's early books like The Barred Window. The barred window is a metaphor for the barred person -- the child, manipulated and deprived, who grows up stunted and blocked, and, finally, very, very twisted. Thomas Penmarsh, unloved by his hypocritical, church-going mother, forms an unhealthy dependence on his domineering cousin, a big-time user of anyone who can get him what he needs, solely because this cousin, Esmond, has always "taken care of him".

I won't go into the details of the plot except to say that save for one person, there is not a decent character in the book, including the narrator, whose entire life consists of the avoidance of "unpleasantness". And yet Taylor's voice is so chillingly compelling, his characters are so rivetingly real that I could no more turn away than a snake can from a snake charmer. And the ending brought about that combination of surprise, inevitability and satisfaction that is to be found in the best books.

It is fascinating, though, to consider the general difference between english and american authors. I could get into trouble here because this is a thought I'm developing on the fly, but it seems to me that although American literature abounds with bad parents, the fact of their badness or inadequacy is always presented as an anomaly, as something to properly rage against, seek therapy to overcome, because of its intrisic wrongness.

In Taylor's world also Kate Atkinson's, P. James', etc. Okay, so there are probably dozens of examples where this sweeping generality falls by the wayside, but it just seems to me that the English, and maybe the Europeans, are simply much more cynical and stoic about the vagaries of life. So, back to the book. Not one of my favorites, glad this wasn't my first Andrew Taylor as I might have found it off-putting, but well written and psychologized like all his work.

I continue to find him a fascinating author. Nov 07, Janette Fleming rated it really liked it Shelves: audio-books.