Inner and outer battles: mental health and feminism in Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The main purpose of this thesis is to examine the figure of Charlotte Perkins Gilman by considering the most crucial events and experiences of her life, through her most famous literary works: “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892), a short story which reports the experience of a woman suffering from postnatal depression, Women and Economics: a study of the economic relation between women and men (1898), where Gilman outlines her views of women’s social roles, and Herland (1915), a utopian novel about an all-female society. Firstly, this project aims to consider Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s own experience with mental health, particularly her encounter with the Rest Cure therapy and its creator, Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, whose approach was steeped in patriarchal prejudice. After this experience, Charlotte Perkins Gilman dedicated her existence to her beliefs and ideals, by writing books, articles and lectures, making her voice heard in a society where women barely had one. She was intensely convinced of the great potential of women, so much that she reported her own vision of a perfect society run by women in her novel Herland (1915), in it she envisioned a better world thanks to women occupying leading roles, in sharp contrast with the prejudiced, unequal and patriarchal society of her time. In addition, I dwell on issues such as women's right to choose for themselves, abortion, and the ethical, moral, and religious controversies it historically faces to refer to how the struggle started by Gilman and other activists before her continues to this day, with no small number of obstacles in its path.