2.1.1 Feminist studies
As a woman writer, Gilman conveys her views on woman by writing, which provides scholars with a much-matched lens to conduct research. Accordingly, there are abundant studies on feminism in Gilman‘s writings both in and outside China.
Feminist studies of Gilman outside China emerged in the 1970s when The Yellow Wallpaper was republished. It is H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) who collected the short story in Supernatural Horror in Literature (1973), admiring its depiction of a woman living in a room with horrible wallpaper who goes crazy (Golden, 1992:3).
Firstly, many scholars such as Pike, Greg Johnson, Hume, Gilbert, Guber, and so on mainly focus on the psychoanalysis of the heroine in Gilman‘s The Yellow Wallpaper. It is not a surprise that many studies of the short story center on the psychology of heroin because it tells a story about a mother who goes crazy due to the confinement in the name of treatment. Pike (1975) discusses the environmental images such as house, garden, and bed in the novel and finds their implication of heroin‘s psychopathological condition. Greg Johnson (1989) analyzes the heroine‘s inner world in detail, claiming, ―The narrative focus of The Yellow Wallpaper moves relentlessly inward, detailing the narrator‘s gradual absorption into the Gothic world of psychic chaos and imaginative freedom‖ (Johnson, 1989:523). Hume (2002) points out that the narrator attempts but finally fails to manage her madness. Generally speaking, many researchers also agree that the madness is due to the patriarchal control of women. Salas (2012) focuses on the mad language and discourse of heroin. In her opinion, madness is her strategy to fight against the patriarchy. Gilbert and Guber (1979) regard the heroine in The Yellow Wallpaper as a madwoman in the attic. They even attribute the creation of the short story to Gilman‘s anxiety and anger in reality. Kolodny (1989) discloses the cruel patriarchal domination in The Yellow Wallpaper. Hill (1980) illustrates Gilman‘s feminist theories by probing into her personal life, which offers a profound interpretation of her ideas for readers. Minguez (2014) argues that women try to change the convention so as to take control of themselves by writing about madness.
2.2 Studies of Gilman’s Utopian Trilogy
Studies of Gilman‘s utopian trilogy began when Herland was reprinted in 1979. It is only Herland, one of the novels in the utopian trilogy, rather than the other novels, that has sparked critical and scholarly attention significantly for its construction of a female utopia. Generally speaking, scholars have researched Gilman‘s utopian trilogy, mostly Herland, which can be classified into the studies of theme and the studies of the research approach.
2.2.1 Thematic studiesGilman‘s utopian trilogy is themed on the construction of female utopias, which results in plenty of interpretations of female utopias. The studies of theme play an indispensable role in the studies of Gilman‘s utopian trilogy. However, only Herland has attracted scholars‘ attention for a long time. Scholars such as Rudd, Gough, Bartowisk, Tavera make utopian interpretations of the novel from various standpoints. Rudd and Gough (1998) are the earliest scholars to discuss the female utopia of Herland in A Very Different Story: Studies on the Fiction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1988). Later on, France Bartowisk, Sheryl Meyering, and Carol Kessler explore Gilman‘s construction of utopia in Herland in Feminist Utopias (1989), Charlotte Perkins Gilman: the Woman and Her Work (1989), and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Her Progress Toward Utopia with Selected Writings (1
