A Study Guide for Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "Three Thanksgivings"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "Three Thanksgivings," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jul 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535841030

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Three Thanksgivings

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

1909

Introduction

Three Thanksgivings, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was first published in Gilman's magazine, Forerunner, in 1909. The story and many of the other works published in the magazine have received very little critical attention, since most critics have tended to focus on Gilman's novella, The Yellow Wallpaper. Nevertheless, Three Thanksgivings contains themes that are common to many of Gilman's stories, including women's struggle for economic independence despite social pressures and the possibility of women being forced to enter into undesirable marriages. The protagonist, Mrs. Delia Morrison, is a widow who wishes to remain in the house that her father built and where she has lived most of her life. However, in two years, Mrs. Morrison owes a small mortgage to Mr. Peter Butts, a persistent man who hopes to marry her. If she cannot pay the mortgage and interest, she will have to sell the house and live with one of her children or marry Mr. Butts and live with him in her house as his servant. In addition to sharing the traits of many of her other stories, Gilman's Three Thanksgivings gives a portrait of the times, accurately reflecting the attitudes toward women that were prevalent in the early twentieth century—when women were fighting for many rights, including economic independence and the right to vote. A copy of the story can be found in The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings, which was published by The Modern Library in 2000.

Author Biography

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born as Charlotte Anna Perkins on July 3, 1860, in Hartford, Connecticut. Gilman's father, Frederick Perkins—a librarian and editor—deserted the family when the author was an infant. As a result, Gilman, her siblings, and her mother lived with relatives, including the famous abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Under the instruction of Stowe and her two sisters, Isabella Beecher Hooker and Catharine Beecher, two feminist activists, the young Gilman developed her independent spirit and desire for equality.

Despite her doubts about the institution of marriage, Gilman married Charles Walter Stetson in 1884, at the age of twenty-four. The union was disastrous. Within a year, Gilman had given birth to a daughter, Katherine, and had entered into a state of deep depression. Under the advice of a noted neurologist, Gilman tried a cure of bedrest and seclusion. The cure only made Gilman's condition worse. However, it did provide Gilman with the background for her first published novella, The Yellow Wallpaper—first published in the New England Magazine in 1890; published on its own in 1899—which depicts such a treatment failing miserably. Although Gilman later admitted that the work was merely an