The Writing s on the Wall: Symbolic Orders in The Yellow Wallpaper

When responding to the problem of the feminine condition, most women writers start with the premises that women are superior, inferior or equal to men—and in any case, the man is the Other. The works of Nicole Vedrès imprime this fundamental otherness on which the feminist dispute traditionally fed. The structures of several of her novels suggest an underlying archaic and tribal pattern which coincides in many places with traits of matriarchal societies. They tend to de‐emphasize the individual character in favor of the unity of the clan. The figure of the husband acquires a secondary and transitory aspect. Within this framework, the women are freed from the usual ethical and sociological taboos of the patriarchal system with which we are familiar, while preserving their dignity and their identity. Finally, the true hero of these stories is the clan's executive agent, a self‐effacing and protective male whose function is to ensure the survival of feminine values. In as much as his relationships with the women of the village are nonsexual and of a brotherly nature, his role resembles that of the maternal uncle in matriarchal models. He does not present the alien and aggressive potential of the usual male hero, thus making possible a world in which men and women are close without being antagonistic.