Translation Ideology Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Short Story “The Yellow Wallpaper” Using Venuti Theory

Abstract

This research examines the ideological effects of translating Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper within the context of Lawrence Venuti’s concepts of domestication and foreignization. As a fundamental feminist work examining 19th-century male-dominated medicine and gender-based oppression, the narrative poses distinct difficulties for translators. The process of domestication may undermine its revolutionary nature by integrating language, cultural allusions, and subversive topics into the norms of the target culture, thus clouding Gilman’s critique and bolstering dominant ideologies. Conversely, foreignization maintains the text's disruptive "otherness" by intentionally keeping stylistic quirks, historical background, and disconcerting narrative techniques, a method that complements the story's subversive purpose. The article contends that foreignization better maintains the ideological integrity of The Yellow Wallpaper. By challenging fluency and emphasizing the sociohistorical details of the source text (e.g., the medical dominance of the rest cure, the protagonist’s linguistic disintegration), this method urges target readers to engage with the text as a historical condemnation and an active critique of gender-based oppression. In the end, the research frames translation as a process of ideological negotiation, in which Venuti’s visibility framework is crucial for conveying the text’s feminist resistance through different languages.