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Gender role in the story the yellow wallpaper
Gender role in the story the yellow wallpaper
Gender role in the story the yellow wallpaper
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The Yellow Wallpaper In the short story 'The Yellow Wallpaper'; by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator and her husband move to a colonial mansion for three months in order to help the narrator get better. She moves upstairs in this horrid room with yellow wallpaper. Throughout the story she studies the wallpaper because she isn't allowed out of the room that much because her husband, John, a physician, says that it is best that she stays inside. As she learns more about the wallpaper she realizes that she sees a woman inside it and she spends a lot of time plotting how to free the woman. She locks her room and tears off most of the wallpaper and frees the woman. At the end John comes into the room, sees what she has done and faints. Everyone deals with their personal obstacles differently and 'The Yellow Wallpaper'; is a perfect example because there are many different obstacles throughout the story. The narrator and John both handle them differently and a result of which, is an essential change by both of them. First of all, John handles everything to an extent but he doesn't solve the problem at hand. He tends to run away from it. For example, when the narrator asks, 'why the house had stood so long untenanted,'; he just laughs at her and doesn't even investigate about it, which proves that he just let it go and does nothing about it. And that is what he does throughout the whole story. Also he 'scoffs openly at any talk.'; This means that he doesn't talk about his problems and he would prefer to keep things bottled up then to express how he is really feeling. He is also always 'going into town for more serious cases.'; This is another way in which John deals with his problems, he runs away from them. He also avoids the actual subject by calling his wife a cute name like, 'bless her little heart,'; and, 'my blessed little goose.'; These quotes just make it so he doesn't have to answer the question and then he has relinquished himself from the situation. Another thing that he does to handle obstacles is he lies. When the narrator says that she doesn't feel any better, and this happens often, then he just says, 'you are getting better, you are eating more and you have more color today.'; So john handles his obstacles in an inefficient and ineffective matter. The... ... middle of paper ... ...hing normally, but she is restricted to a limited amount of socialization. This gives her time to analyze her obstacle and overcome it quicker than John does. Both the narrator and John undergo an essential change. The narrator begins the story as a woman who is somewhat mentally distraught. Throughout the story you can see her become different through her thoughts and actions. By the end of the story she has become clinically insane and is in desperate need for help. John on the other hand does not come to the realization that at the beginning of the story, the narrator has some issues that have to be dealt with and he just ignores them for the most part. Finally at the end of the story he comes to the realization that in fact, his wife is nuts. In conclusion, everyone experiences obstacles in their life, and all have a different approach in which they attack the obstacle. Some are more effective than others are. The narrator was much more effective than John was because she had time to analyze the problem and then do something about it. Where as John would pretty much just leave it be and hope it eventually went away.
The irony between the two characters shows us how the narrator has a false sense of how a marriage should be. “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in a marriage” (Gilman 478). It is ironic because in a healthy, normal marriage, no one expects for a husband to laugh at his wife, but the narrator finds it to be completely normal. The narrator truly believes that her marriage is normal and that everything is fine, when in fact her husband has tricked her into going to an abandoned insane asylum in hopes of curing her. Another ironic moment is when John’s course of treatment backfires. John believes that taking his wife to an old asylum and locking her in a bedroom will be the cure for her for her depression, but it does the complete opposite. The narrator states, “I’ve got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back” (Gilman 489). Both John and his sister believed that by isolating the narrator she would eventually become sane, but they failed to realize what was really wrong with her. John’s state of ignorance and his stubbornness lead him to misjudge the situation a...
It is clear that in their marriage, her husband makes her decisions on her behalf and she is expected to simply follow blindly. Their relationship parallels the roles that men and women play in marriage when the story was written. The narrator’s feelings of powerlessness and submissive attitudes toward her husband are revealing of the negative effects of gender roles. John’s decision to treat the narrator with rest cure leads to the narrator experiencing an intense feeling of isolation, and this isolation caused her mental decline. Her descent into madness is at its peak when she grows tears the wallpaper and is convinced that “[she’s] got out at last, in spite of [John] and Jennie… and [they] can’t put her back!”
Treating the narrator as though she is incompetent and not capable of taking care of herself, John does not care
The bars on windows, bedstead nailed down, and a gate at the top of the stairs suggest an unsafe place. The narrator’s preference for living in the downstairs room is undermined by John’s control over her. Furthermore, John puts his wife into an environment with no communication, making her socially isolated. The protagonist is home alone most of the time while John is at work. She is not allowed to raise her own baby, and Jennie, John's sister, is occupied with her job.
Although the narrator feels desperate, John tells her that there is “no reason” for how she feels, she must dismiss those “silly fantasies”(166). In other words, John treats her like a child and gives her reason to doubt herself. “Of course it is only nervousness”(162). She decides. She tries to rest, to do as she is told, like a child, but suffers because John does not believe that she is ill. This makes her feel inadequate and unsure of her own sanity.
Conflict is an important part of any short story. The short story, “On the Sidewalk Bleeding,” contains three major conflicts: man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. himself. In this essay, I intend to explain, prove, and analyze these three struggles.
The conflict of the story is that John must over come his fears and go
The narrator then truly drops into the realm of insanity. She starts to be untrusting of John, stating, “He asked me all sorts of questions too, pretending to be very loving and kind. As if I couldn’t see through him” (235). Her distrust reveals that her mind has truly discovered how oppressed she is. She then viciously begins ripping the wallpaper from the wall (236).
The attempts the women tries so to be in vain till the end when it over boils. The women set herself free in the only way she knew how. Sometimes when people are in tight situation, or when their goals are being blocked, they react even when it doesn’t make sense. The women reacted to being closed up and oppressed and, to her family, it didn’t make
Johnny’s parents are telling him he must leave to another foster home because the city had told his parents that they cannot keep Johnny any longer in his house. This is a major part of the story because it is the starting point of when Johnny must start his adventure to live by himself. This relates to the theme because Johnny had the choice to move with the other family or run away, the theme of this story was to ‘make the right choice’. Johnny has to rely to his only friend to help him through the rough stage of being homeless with no family. When Johnny does go through this stage he has to potato find a way to thrive in the city and stay alive with the help of his friend, Billy.
Ann and John, two characters from he short story "The Painted Door", do not have a very healthy relationship. John is a simple farmer who thinks the only way he can please his wife, Ann, is by working all day to earn money for her. However Ann would prefer him to spend more time with her. Their relationship is stressed even further when Ann is left at home alone with nothing to think about but their relationship because John has to go to his father’s house. The terrible snowstorm accentuates Ann’s feelings of loneliness and despair. John does not pay enough attention to Ann, and therefore creates a weak relationship.
All sense of individuality and self worth is taken way from the narrator when her name is never revealed to the audience. Furthermore, John continues to belittle his wife by giving her the command to not walk around at night. Although the John thinks in his mind that he is looking out for the best interest of his wife, in actuality, he is taking away his wife’s abilities to make choices for herself. There is a possibility that John’s controlling personality is one of the factors that led to his wife’s psychosis. Such a controlling life style more than likely limited the narrator’s ability to live any life outside of the home.
...ssion and intrusiveness. John’s lack of having an open mind to his wife’s thoughts and opinions and his constant childish like treatment of his wife somehow emphasizes this point, although, this may not have been his intention. The narrator felt strongly that her thoughts and feelings were being disregarded and ignored as stated by the narrator “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him” (Gilman 115), and she shows her despise of her husband giving extra care to what he considers more important cases over his wife’s case with a sarcastic notion “I am glad my case is not serious!” (Gilman 115). It is very doubtful that John is the villain of the story, his good intentions towards doing everything practical and possible to help his wife gain her strength and wellbeing is clear throughout the story.
The narrator makes comments and observations that demonstrate her will to overcome the oppression of the male dominant society. The conflict between her views and those of the society can be seen in the way she interacts physically, mentally, and emotionally with the three most prominent aspects of her life: her husband, John, the yellow wallpaper in her room, and her illness, "temporary nervous depression. " In the end, her illness becomes a method of coping with the injustices forced upon her as a woman. As the reader delves into the narrative, a progression can be seen from the normality the narrator displays early in the passage, to the insanity she demonstrates near the conclusion.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the story of a woman who is trapped in a room covered in yellow wallpaper. The story is one that is perplexing in that the narrator is arguably both the protagonist as well as the antagonist. In the story, the woman, who is the main character, struggles with herself indirectly which results in her descent into madness. The main conflicts transpires between the narrator and her husband John who uses his power as a highly recognize male physician to control his wife by placing limitations on her, forcing her to behave as a sick woman. Hence he forced himself as the superior in their marriage and relationship being the sole decision make. Therefore it can be said what occurred externally resulted in the central conflict of” “The Yellow Wallpaper being internal. The narrator uses the wallpaper as a symbol of authenticy. Hence she internalizes her frustrations rather then openly discussing them.