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

Year 2013, Volume: 10 Issue: 2, 171 - 184, 02.11.2013

Azin Eshghı

Abstract

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. 

Keywords

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

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

Abstract

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. 

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