Corpus-based Study of New Motherhood in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland

1. Corpus-based Study of New Motherhood in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland Ya-Jie Chen, Hui-Chuan Lu & Kailing Liu National Cheng Kung University, TAIWAN

2. Introduction • This paper aims to examine literary theories and feminist works from a linguistic perspective. • Why we choose Gilman and her works? • Sporting literary theory: Val Gough 1995 “Lesbian and Virgins: The Motherhood in Herland.”

3. Introduction Corpora: • Herland • The Yellow Wallpaper • British National Corpus • Mike Scott’s Oxford WordSmith Tool (version 4 )

4. Story Outline

5. Literary Review • Female Utopia (Donaldson, 1989) • Motherhood (Golden, 1996) • biological function: giving birth • social function: nursing • Maternal Separatism and Professionalization of Child Care (Gough 1995)

6. Research Question and Methods • Question: Compared the BNC, how do Gilman’s literary work, Herland and The Yellow Wallpaper, present Val Gough’s idea of “new motherhood?” • Maternal separatism & Professionalization of Child Care • Methods: By using WordSmith, this paper will compare BNC, Herland, and The Yellow Wallpaper in order to examine our research question.

7. 4. Result and Discussion4.1. Contrast of words with high frequency

8. 4.1. Contrast of words with high frequency

9. 4.1. Contrast of words with high frequency

10. 4.1. Contrast of words with high frequency

11. 4.2 “Mother”

12. 4.2 “Mother”

13. 4.2 “Mother”

14. 4.2 “Mother”

15. 4.2.1 “Mother” in Gilman’s autobiography Her method was to deny the child all expression of affection as far as possible, so that she should not be used to it or long for it. “I used to put away your little hand from my cheek when you were a nursing baby,” she told me in later years; “I did not want you to suffer as I had suffered.” She would not let me caress her, and would not caress me, unless I was asleep. (Gilman [autobiography] 11)

16. 4.2.2 Father

17. 4.3 Child

18. 4.3.1 Mother and Child • In The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman’s concern lies in the predicament women usually need to get through when they are expected to fulfill the role of a traditional mother. However, in later works, she focuses on the transformation of motherhood into a social function: a women’s job is to nurse and bring up the next generation. • Gilman thinks that “to perform that which is most good for the young of the species is the measure of right motherhood, and that which is most good for the young is what will help them to a better maturity than that of their parents. To leave in the world a creature better than its parent: this is the purpose of right motherhood”(WE, 89).

19. 4.4 Other relevant words

21. 4.5 Birth 4.6 nursing, caretaking, education 4.7 Professionalization of Child Care 4.8 Motherhood as a Religion

22. 5. Conclusion In our study, for example, the highly repeated word, “mother,” in Gilman’s Herland indicates her emphasis on the transformation of traditional motherhood. Also, we can use the results to analyze the subtle changes in author’s writing style and focus in different stages.

23. Limitation: The size of this corpus is comparatively small. • Future research: In our future study, We hope that we can analyze more of Gilman’s works or some other literary works about the idea of motherhood.

24. Thank you! yajiec@hotmail.com