Critic speak is tough, but we've got you covered.
Quote :The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
What does it mean to be a woman writer in a culture whose fundamental definitions of literary authority are, as we have seen, both overtly and covertly patriarchal? If the vexed and vexing polarities of angel and monster, sweet dumb Snow White and fierce mad Queen, are major images literary tradition offers women, how does such imagery influence the ways in which women attempt the pen? If the Queen's looking glass speaks with the King's voice, how do its perpetual kingly admonitions affect the Queen's own voice? Since his is the chief voice she hears, does the Queen try to sound like the King, imitating his tone, his inflections, his phrasing, his points of view? Or does she "talk back" to him in her own vocabulary, her own timbre, insisting on her own viewpoint?
It's no understatement to say that The Madwoman in the Attic helped to redefine lit crit in North America and the UK. Gilbert and Gubar argued it was high time to start taking stock of the barriers 19th-century women writers experienced, because lots of them were still alive and kicking. For ages, folks had been taught to associate writing with masculinity: just think of all those metaphors connecting pens and penises and swords!
Plus, patriarchy had a knack for feeding women pretty dismal stories about themselves: apparently, they're either monsters or angels, evil queens or beautiful princesses. Which meant the flourishing of a lot of sexist stereotypes that glorified masculinity and pushed femininity off to the side.
So where did that leave women writers? Telling the same old stories that patriarchy fed them? Sometimes. Or fighting back with stories about themselves? And if they did do that, was anyone going to listen?
Gilbert and Gubar argued that when women writers try to work from inside patriarchal cultures, they'll be torn in two directions. Although they'll be desperate to tell their own stories, society will tell them they're crazy for feeling that way. And although they'll struggle to express themselves, they'll have to push back against all of the cultural expectations that dictate what women should sound like and be like.
Sounds grim, but Gilbert and Gubar brought a lot of previously ignored women writers into the spotlight with their book, and showed the potential for shifting the paradigm. Now that's stickin' it to the man!