A study of self-representation in the living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An autobiography

Autobiography as a genre has received an exponential attention especially after the second half of the twentieth century. However, the field of this academic study was enveloped by men?s autobiography, and it was not until 1980s that women?s autobiography was accepted as a distinctive genre.Focusing primarily on The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography, this study demonstrates how autobiography becomes an alternative route for women to use their public voices. Gilman?s autobiography has not been studied as a literary text, but given a reference for secondary readings principally. Approaching The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography as a literary text will provide us valuable insights on how an autobiography becomes an emancipatory tool for a woman bound by patriarchal codes to call her readers to action.Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a prominent figure for an alternative vision of female culture and the purpose of her autobiography is to represent herself as a model for other younger women of her time. The aim of this study is to analyze The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography as the presentation of the self for social immortality.An exploration of the ways Gilman self-represents herself necessarily sheds light on her socialist commitment, feminist vision, political/social landscape of America in Gilman?s time, how and under which circumstances she constructs her textual identity, ?unfeminine? practices she pursues, and what she inherits from or resists to generic forms of autobiography.Key Words: Autobiography, Women?s Autobiography, Gender, Self-Representation, Public/Private Self