Between Silence and Narrative: Disciplinary Space and the Construction of Female Subjectivity in The Yellow Wallpaper

Abstract

This study critically examines Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper as a narrative that exposes the gender-based domination of modern medicine over women and the spatial strategies of disciplinary power. The research employs a qualitative literary analysis and critical discourse analysis approach, drawing on Michel Foucault’s theories of disciplinary power and panoptic surveillance as well as Elaine Showalter’s concept of the discourse of female madness. The findings indicate that the fixed bed, barred window, and enclosed space in the story not only keep the narrator’s body under constant observation but also function as instruments that devalue her subjectivity through the diagnosis of madness. While the prohibition of writing produces an epistemic silence that prevents the articulation of experience, the narrator’s secret journaling creates a fragile form of resistance that rejects the role of the suppressed subject. According to the results, the language of the narrative, initially coherent, gradually transforms into a fragmented and contradictory discourse reflecting psychological disintegration. The text reveals how Victorian patriarchal medicine, combined with domestic hierarchies, institutionalizes control over the female body and demonstrates that writing becomes a subjective space of protest against the modern surveillance society.

Keywords

• Disciplinary Power
• Panopticism
• Female Madness
• The Yellow Wallpaper
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Sessizlik ve Yazı Arasında: Sarı Duvar Kâğıdı’nda Disipliner Mekân ve Kadın Öznelliği

Abstract

Bu çalışma, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’ın Sarı Duvar Kâğıdı adlı eserini, modern tıbbın kadınlar üzerindeki cinsiyet temelli tahakkümünü ve disipliner iktidarın mekânsal stratejilerini açığa çıkaran bir anlatı olarak eleştirel biçimde incelemektedir. Araştırma, nitel edebî çözümleme ve eleştirel söylem analizi yöntemlerinden yararlanmakta; Michel Foucault’nun disipliner iktidar ve panoptik gözetim kuramları ile Elaine Showalter’ın “kadın deliliği söylemi” kavramına dayanmaktadır. Bulgular, öyküdeki sabit yatak, parmaklıklı pencere ve kapalı mekânın yalnızca anlatıcının bedenini sürekli denetim altında tutmadığını, aynı zamanda “delilik” teşhisi aracılığıyla öznel değerini de geçersiz kılan araçlar hâline geldiğini göstermektedir. Yazma yasağı, deneyimin dile getirilmesini engelleyen epistemik bir sessizlik üretirken; anlatıcının gizlice tuttuğu günlük, bastırılmış öznenin rolünü reddeden kırılgan bir direniş biçimi oluşturmaktadır. Elde edilen sonuçlara göre, başlangıçta tutarlı olan anlatı dili giderek parçalanmış ve çelişkili bir söyleme dönüşerek psikolojik çözülmeyi yansıtmaktadır. Metin, Viktorya dönemi ataerkil tıbbının, ev içi hiyerarşilerle birleşerek kadın bedeni üzerinde kurumsallaşmış bir denetim tesis ettiğini; yazma eyleminin ise modern gözetim toplumuna karşı öznel bir itiraz alanı hâline geldiğini ortaya koymaktadır.

Keywords

• Disipliner İktidar
• Panoptizm
• Kadın Deliliği
• Sarı Duvar Kâğıdı
• Charlotte Pekins Gilman

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