The constraining bind of the patriarchy is a prevalent theme in many Victorian Era works. From Kate Chopin to Edith Wharton, the topic took on various viewpoints to explain to the male-dominated society how ardent and draining being an idealized Victorian woman was. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman takes on the trending topic through the eyes of a Victorian woman under the influence of a temporary nervous depression. Gilman mirrors patriarchal society through the style and content, the restrictions placed on the narrator, and the liberties the narrator takes to detach from those restrictions.
Through the style and content of the short story, Gilman hints that because the main character is a female, she is not to be taken
…show more content…
The yellow wallpaper is, by far, the most mysterious and prominent oppressor the narrator has to face. As the story progresses, the narrator falls into a spiral towards insanity. Her diary entries become shorter and when she does write in her diary, she mostly writes an analysis of the wallpaper. For example, after the narrator sees Jennie and John look at the wallpaper several times, she comments on the odor of the yellow wallpaper. She states that the smell “creeps all over the house” and that “it is not bad--at first--and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met ” (Gilman 816). As the odor of the wallpaper swirls around the narrator, she thinks about it constantly, even writing a whole diary entry based solely on the smell. The yellow wallpaper, therefore, may represent domesticity as the narrator strays from being an angel in the house and conforms to the archetype of the woman in the attic. Because John never helps her move out of the room or take the wallpaper down, one may assume that John knows the power of the wallpaper and uses it to make his wife bend to domesticity. Why else would John pick an old colonial mansion to reside in? John may be thinking that the narrator will succumb to domesticity and let go of the idea of being mentally …show more content…
If the reader pays no mind to his character, they will think that John is merely a staple of the ideal Victorian husband. Although this is true, John’s character is a representation of the practice of paternal benevolence in a marriage. In the first entry of the short story, the narrator brings up instances of John’s irritating reassurances over subtle yet eerie instincts the narrator seems to have. For example, when they first get to the house, the narrator tells John, “...there is something strange about the house — I can feel it” (Gilman 809). John simply tells her it must be a drought and he closes the window. In the next paragraph, the narrator admits that she does get angry at John sometimes and blames her own nervous system. It seems as though John has waxed over all of her situations and instead of blaming John, she blames herself in true Victorian fashion. In this era, women were to believe that there could be nothing wrong with their husbands. The man was superior and the woman was inferior. When John dismisses the narrator’s instincts and problems, he is belittling her like a parent belittles a child’s instincts and problems. This is further supported later on in the story when the narrator gets up to see the wallpaper move. John says, “What is it, little girl? Don’t go walking about like that -- you’ll get cold”(Gilman 814). Later on, when John tells the narrator that she is getting better and she disapproves, he sits
“The Yellow Wallpaper” was a groundbreaking piece for its time. It not only expressed feministic views through the defiance of a male but also discussed mental illness and the inefficacy of medical treatment at the time. This fictional piece questioned and challenged the submissive role forced upon women of the 19th century and disclosed some of the mental struggles one might go through during this time of questing. Gilman shows however that even in the most horrific struggle to overcome male dominance, it is possible. She herself escapes which again shows a feminist empowerment to end the
The narrator begins the story by recounting how she speculates there may be something wrong with the mansion they will be living in for three months. According to her the price of rent was way too cheap and she even goes on to describe it as “queer”. However she is quickly laughed at and dismissed by her husband who as she puts it “is practical in the extreme.” As the story continues the reader learns that the narrator is thought to be sick by her husband John yet she is not as convinced as him. According
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, is a first-person narrative written in the style of a journal. It takes place during the nineteenth century and depicts the narrator’s time in a temporary home her husband has taken her to in hopes of providing a place to rest and recover from her “nervous depression”. Throughout the story, the narrator’s “nervous condition” worsens. She begins to obsess over the yellow wallpaper in her room to the point of insanity. She imagines a woman trapped within the patterns of the paper and spends her time watching and trying to free her. Gilman uses various literary elements throughout this piece, such as irony and symbolism, to portray it’s central themes of restrictive social norms
As the narrator’s mental state changes so does the way she perceives things around the house. The most prominent example of this is the imagery of the wallpaper and the way the narrator’s opinion on the wallpaper slowly changes throughout the story; this directly reflects what is happening within the narrator’s mind. At the beginning of the story the narrator describes the wallpaper as “Repellent...revolting... a smoldering unclean yellow” (Gilman 377). As the story continues the narrator starts to become obsessed with the wallpaper and her opinion of it has completely changed than that of hers from the beginning. Symbolism plays a big part in “The Yellow Wallpaper” too. This short story has a multitude of symbols hidden in it but there are specific ones that stand out the most. The recurrence of the wallpaper definitely makes it a symbol. An interesting interpretation is that the wallpaper represents women, in the sense that the 18th century woman was considered almost decorative and that is exactly what the purpose of wallpaper is. Another prominent symbol that runs parallel with the wallpaper, are the women the narrator would see in the wallpaper. The women appear trapped behind bars in the paper and one could argue that the women the narrator sees represents all women of her time, continuously trapped in their gender
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper," the reader is treated to an intimate portrait of developing insanity. At the same time, the story's first person narrator provides insight into the social attitudes of the story's late Victorian time period. The story sets up a sense of gradually increasing distrust between the narrator and her husband, John, a doctor, which suggests that gender roles were strictly defined; however, as the story is just one representation of the time period, the examination of other sources is necessary to better understand the nature of American attitudes in the late 1800s. Specifically, this essay will analyze the representation of women's roles in "The Yellow Wallpaper" alongside two other texts produced during this time period, in the effort to discover whether Gilman's depiction of women accurately reflects the society that produced it.
This male dominance led the narrator from “The Yellow Wallpaper” into loneliness and eventually to a place of no return. The alienation is shown in terms of the setting, "The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. " The house that the couple rented for three months represents the woman’s physical imprisonment and symbolizes her isolation. Moreover, the nursery that John recommends his wife to live in includes many confining elements.
Gilman’s story effectively illustrates the natural superiority role men have over women, and portrays how women naturally submit to the supremacy of men. I began looking back at my experience of growing up in Texas, and I began to see how these gender roles are enforced by society, and applied to the people living there. Growing up in a small town, made it hard for women to escape their gender role, because it was considered “unnatural” to do anything else besides be a wife and mother. Gilman understood the naturalness of gender roles to men and women, she explains in her autobiography, stating it is something we are born with and bred to become, she even coined this phenomenon, calling it genealogy (Weinbaum). Through Gilman’s story, the conflict of genealogy is expressed through the narrator and her husband. The narrator becomes more aware of the conventional role that she is destined to become, and that is why she begins to visualize women stuck in the wallpaper. I felt as if I began seeing things, like the narrator. However, my convulsions were about myself, I began visualising a future that does not have to be centered around finding a good wealthy man and having children. That I as a woman, can step aside from my conventional gender role, and rely on myself, and that I do not have to find a man to fulfill my
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” we are walked through the journal of a women who has been diagnosed, by her husband, with what he believes is merely, “temporary nervous depression” (Gilman 216). Since the protagonist’s husband, John, believes the only way she will get better is through moderate exercise, and lots of rest, they rent a house where she can have tranquility and rest until she is better (Gilman 216). At first glance “The Yellow Wallpaper” seems like a simple story of a women trying to get better in a house that she doesn’t particularly like. However, through further analysis it can be seen that through the use of symbolism Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a critique on the role of women in nineteenth-century American society.
For decades now critics have viewed, Gilman’s novella, “The Yellow Wallpaper” mainly in a feminist way, focusing on the way women acted and how they were treated in the 1800s. Although there are good points to the feminist criticism, one could go more in depth by psychoanalyzing it because feminism fit more into the 1800s when women did not have the roles they have today, by looking at the psychoanalytic effect the restrictions had on her, and observing the effects the room had on her.
Susan B. Anthony, a woman’s rights pioneer, once said, “Oh, if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done” (“Women’s Voices Magazine”). Women’s rights is a hot button issue in the United States today, and it has been debated for years. In the late 1800’s an individual named Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote literature to try and paint a picture in the audience’s mind that gender inferiority is both unjust and horrific. In her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman makes the ultimate argument that women should not be seen as subordinate to men, but as equal.
In a female oppressive story about a woman driven from postpartum depression to insanity, Charlotte Gilman uses great elements of literature in her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. Her use of feminism and realism demonstrates how woman's thoughts and opinions were considered in the early 1900?s.
Like the darkness that quickly consumes, the imprisoning loneliness of oppression swallows its victim down into the abyss of insanity. & nbsp;
...ble to see that it actually incorporates themes of women’s rights. Gilman mainly used the setting to support her themes. This short story was written in 1892, at that time, there was only one women's suffrage law. Now, because of many determinant feminists, speakers, teachers, and writers, the women’s rights movement has grown increasing large and is still in progress today. This quite recent movement took over more then a century to grant women the rights they deserve to allow them to be seen as equals to men. This story was a creative and moving way to really show how life may have been as a woman in the nineteenth century.
The Yellow Paper is a short story published in 1892, and written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Charlotte tells of a disheartening tale of a woman who struggles to free herself from postpartum depression. The Yellow Paper gives an account of an emotionally and intellectual deteriorated woman struggles to break free from a mental prison her husband had put her into, in order to find peace. The woman lived in a male dominated society and wanted indictment from it as she had been driven crazy, because of the Victorian “rest-cure” (Gilman 45). Her husband decided to force her to have a strict bed rest by separating her from her only child. He took her to recuperate in an isolated country estate all alone. The bed rest her husband forced into made her mental state develop from bad to worst. The Yellow Paper is a story that warns the readers about the consequences of fixed gender roles in a male-dominated world. In The Yellow Paper, a woman’s role was to be a dutiful wife and she should not question her husband’s authority and even whereabouts. Whereas, a man’s role was to be a husband, main decision maker, rational thinker and his authority was not to be questioned by the wife.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" motivated the female mind of creativity and mental strength through a patriarchal order of created gender roles and male power during the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. While John represented characteristics of a typical male of his time, the yellow wallpaper represented a controlling patriarchal society; a sin of inequality that a righteous traitor needed to challenge and win. As the wallpaper deteriorates, so does the suppressing effect that male hierarchy imposed on women. Male belief in their own hierarchy was not deteriorating. Females began to think out of line, be aware of their suppression, and fight patriarchal rule. The progression of the yellow wallpaper and the narrator, through out the story, leads to a small win over John. This clearly represents and motivates the first steps of a feminist movement into the twentieth century.