WC: 327
“Cakes of maple sugar, dried peas and beans, barley and hominy, meal of all sorts, potatoes and dried fruit. No milk, butter, cheese, tea, or meat appeared. Even salt was considered a uselesss luxury and spice entirely forbidden by these lovers of Spartan simplicity…” (Tompkins 2012: 134)
“The sacrificed object is the female herself- her “taste, time, and temper” are juxtaposed to the negation of the “gory steak” – but clearly that negation establishes a brutal correlation between the mother’s work and a helpless piece of meat.” (Tompkins 2012: 135)
Herman, S., & Seldin, J. (2017, February 18). Trump’s Attack on Media as ‘Enemy of the People’ Has Historic Echoes. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://www.voanews.com/a/donald-trump-attack-on-media-enemy-of-people-historic-echoes/3729946.html
This article describes the history of individuals running a country that say that the media is the number one enemy of the people. The author cited Stalin and Mao Zedong’s oppressive rule in Soviet Russia and China. This article shows gaslighting done by a white male on the largest stage in the United States.
In Chapter 4 of Racial Indigestion, Tompkins discusses two Rose Campbell novels Eight Cousins and Rose In Bloom. In the first text her uncle, Dr. Alec, misdirected his unresolved emotion from being in love with his brother’s wife to the perverted caretaking of her daughter. The irresponsible decision to mix medicinal practice and personal life responsibilities contributed to …”Rose accepting her uncle’s pot of view and models her choice of husband on her Uncle’s example” (Tompkins 2012: 126). Tompkins addresses that Dr. Alec views the parenting of Rose as an “experiment” or “treatment” as Tompkins outlines the overlap of the libidinal with the edifying, and the moral with the medical. Those themes are very present in Charlotte Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. In Gilman’s tale, the narrator is a newly married, young upper-middle class woman who is being treated by her doctor husband for depression. As previously mentioned, Rose accepted the uncle’s perspectives as her own and the story ironically ends up, according to Tompkins, as a love story of sorts between one of Rose’s Aunt’s maids, Phebe, and Rose. In Gilman’s story, the newly married woman has already been suffering from isolationism, unintentional gaslighting from her husband, and depression. This woman completely relies on her husband’s word as a medical practitioner, and while he honestly reflects on the practices taught to him, he ends up gaslighting his wife’s valid emotions because he prescribes sleep, isolation, and bedrest which lead to her mental unhinging. A similar deprivation of emotional expression can be seen in Louisa May Alcott’s Transcendental Wild Oats. Alcott addresses the utopian diet designed by her father as being particularly difficult for the mother who prepares these meals. The changes restrict all artistic input from the chef and the change of diet to unleavened bread, porridge, and water for breakfast; bread, vegetables, and water for dinner; bread, fruit, and water for supper put a woman’s taste, time, and temper on the menu to be consumed.
Works Cited
Alcott, L. M. (1927). Eight cousins. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.
The text describes the story of an orphaned girl who is taken care of by her Grahamite-practicing doctor of an uncle that loved her mother in one of her rich Aunt’s large house. The orphaned girl adopts Dr. Alec’s ideologies and her ideal man takes similar form as he switches out her tonics and pills with milk and bread. This text shows the cross between the libidinal with the edifying and the moral with the medical as seen in Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper.
Clive, J., Curtis, S., Wadey, M., Gilman, C. P., & British Broadcasting Corporation. (1989). The yellow wallpaper. Great Britain: BBC.
The text describes the story of a newlywed, young woman who is being mistreated for depression by her doctor who is also her husband. The cultural beliefs of that time did not acknowledge the emotional deprivation of women whose function was to supplement the man when he is at work as seen in his prescription of isolation, bed rest, and sleep. This text shows the consequences when the edifying and libidinal are crossed with the moral and the medical.
Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). An Indigenous Peoples’ history of the United States. Beacon Press: Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
Tompkins, K. W. (2012). Racial indigestion: Eating bodies in the nineteenth century. New York: New York University Press.