Women, marriage, and madness in Jean Rhys's 'Wide Sargasso Sea', Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs. Dalloway', and Doris Lessing's 'The Golden Notebook', as seen through Charlotte Gilman Perkin's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' (Dominica, Zimbabwe)

This thesis investigates the confining roles of women in the following four contemporary fictional works: "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Gilman Perkins, Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys, Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, and The Golden Notebook , by Doris Lessing. In particular, this thesis looks at how these women's confining roles lead to "madness," how the medical profession contributes to these women's psychological states, and how these women are defined in relation to each other. Typical research methods and procedures were used in gathering the data for the thesis; in particular, research was performed entirely at the University of Louisville's Ekstrom Library. My findings were that most critics had written on the topic of women, madness, and marriage, in each of the four works. My conclusions differed from those of most critics I read during my research; in particular, they argued for a character's sanity when I argued for her insanity, and vice versa.