The Madwoman in the Attic - Sandra M.Gilbert and Susan Gubar

 

The Madwoman in the Attic  - Sandra M.Gilbert and Susan Gubar

‘The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination’ is co-authored by Sandra M.Gilbert and Susan Gubar. It was published in 1979. It is a nonfiction scholarly text comprising 16 interconnected essays. It analyses 19^th century literature focusing on the struggles of women writers and the stereotypical representations of women as either ‘the angel in the house’ or ‘the madwoman in the attic’

The book is aimed to recover a neglected female literary history by focusing on works by authors such as Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot and two English poets Elizabeth Barrett and Christina Rossetti as well as the American poet Emily Dickinson.

Jane Austen

Gilbert and Gubar's examination begins with Jane Austen, particularly through her early works.  Austen's narratives often reflect the societal double bind faced by women of her time. In Northanger Abbey, Austen cleverly plays with gothic novel conventions to address Catherine Morland's journey toward maturity, simultaneously critiquing a society that stifles women's voices. The "evil" Catherine must confront is twofold: her own reluctance to embrace reality and the oppressive societal norms themselves. This theme of self-discovery amidst societal constraints is further explored in Austen's adult novels, where her heroines must often suppress their self-definition to gain self-awareness, highlighting their inherent vulnerabilities.

Mary Shelley

The legacy of Milton's "Paradise Lost" extends into Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," wherein the character of the monster reflects Eve's quest for knowledge and self-definition. The authors suggest that Shelley, orphaned of a mother and searching for her roots, imprints her own experiences onto her work. The monster's exclusion from societal privileges mirrors Shelley's own literary and emotional isolation.

 

Emily Bronte

Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" parallels Shelley's narrative in its self-conscious exploration of origins and identity. The novel's structure and thematic focus on rebellion and lack of choice create a revisionary narrative challenging Miltonic themes. Brontë's exploration of female oppression and autonomy underscores the thematic continuity across female authors of the period.

Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte Brontë's "The Professor" and "Jane Eyre" depict women’s "fall" and fantasies of liberation from confined roles. In "Jane Eyre," the figure of Bertha Mason embodies Jane’s suppressed rage, a manifestation of her struggle toward independence. The narrative arc reveals a journey from potential spiritual death to a hopeful, yet isolated, union at Ferndean, offering a nuanced commentary on women's search for identity.

 

George Eliot

In her short story "The Lifted Veil," George Eliot explores confinement and extrasensory perception, weaving a narrative that critiques male literary conventions. Eliot's works, including "Middlemarch," reflect her engagement with a distinctively female literary tradition, exploring themes of rebellion and female connection. Her correspondence with contemporary authors underscores a shared ambition among female writers to redefine women's roles in literature without succumbing to destructive rage.

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson’s poetry embodies a rebellion against gender constraints through recurring motifs of sewing and weaving. Instead of portraying madness through characters, Dickinson chose to inhabit the persona of an isolated madwoman. Her deliberate eccentricity and isolation were acts of poetic rebellion, reflecting a deeper feminist concern with articulating a distinct female identity within a literary tradition dominated by men.

Indeed, more recent scholars consider the analysis presented in the book oversimplified and even somewhat reductionist. It has been criticized for its focus on a very limited canon of white, often wealthy, female authors, its exclusion of entire novelistic genres, its blatant refusal to speak on contemporary writers such as M. E. Braddon or Anna Laetitia Barbauld, and its failure to accurately discuss the experiences of middle- to lower-class women. Despite these criticisms, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination remains a landmark in feminist literary criticism.