Literary Analysis of Female oppression in “The Yellow Wallpaper” The story is Gilman’s way of throwing off the restraints of the patriarchal society so that she can do what she loves, to write and advocate for women’s rights. In her story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman challenges the roles of women in this time period; such as viewing women as children, as prisoners, as domestic house slaves, their sanity and the dangers of being the quintessential passive, submissive woman. Gilman embraces as a writer that there is more to her as a person than that of what has been shoved on her by society. She embraces feminism which by definition is the belief that women and men should have equal rights and opportunities. The time period in which Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written, it was during the Victorian time period where a man’s word was law. It was a very patriarchal society where a family, community, or society is based on a system governed by men. Where men were the sole bread winners and forward thinkers. A woman’s role and identity in …show more content…
In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator is told that she cannot have the more adult room downstairs that opens up into the garden but that the nursery upstairs would better suite her so that she could be monitored at all times(Gilman 474). When she protests, begs to see her cousins and begins to cry he calls her “A blessed little goose” and carries her back upstairs and reads to her until she clams down just like one would do to a child only to further solidify his views of his wife’s condition is due to the fact that she is a woman and not due to her depression. As for her prescribed treatment she is not permitted to leave the confines of the house, while her husband has all the freedoms of a man to come and go as he pleases. He sometimes stays gone all night leaving her alone with this yellow wall
“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
Gilman is an author whose writing is based on individuals making up America's collective identity. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is from the vantage points of being a woman, at a time when women were not supposed to have individual thoughts and personalities. At this time in history, the social roles of women were very well-defined: mothers and caretakers of the family, prim and proper creatures that were pleasant to look at, seen but not heard, and irrational and emotional. The identity of women were presupposed on them by men. At the time this story was written, social criticisms were on the rise and writers had more of an outlet to express themselves. Women's suffrage provided by many female writers, such as Gilman, the means to air the wrongs against women.
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
“There are things in that paper which nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder—I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here!” The late 19th century hosted a hardship for women in our society. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman expressed a form of patriarchy within the story. Gilman never addressed the woman in the “The Yellow Wallpaper” by a name, demonstrating her deficiency of individual identity. The author crafted for the narrator to hold an insignificant role in civilization and to live by the direction of man. Representing a hierarchy between men and women in the 19th century, the wallpaper submerged the concentration of the woman and began compelling her into a more profound insanity.
At the time Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” she was considered a prominent feminist writer. This piece of background information allows the readers to see Gilman’s views on women’s rights and roles in the 18th century; “The Yellow Wallpaper” suggests that women in the 18th century were suppressed into society’s marital gender roles. Gilman uses the setting and figurative language, such as symbolism, imagery, and metaphors to convey the theme across.
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper” we are introduced to a woman who enjoys writing. Gilman does not give the reader the name of the women who narrates the story through her stream of consciousness. She shares that she has a nervous depression condition. John, the narrator’s husband feels it is “a slight hysterical tendency” (266). She has been treated for some nervous habits that she feels are legitimately causing harm to her way of life. However she feels her husband, a physician, and her doctor believe that she is embellishing her condition. The woman shares with the reader early in the story that she is defensive of how others around her perceive her emotional state. This causes a small abrasion of animosity that festers into an infection of insanity.
In the 19th century, women were not seen in society as being an equal to men. Men were responsible for providing and taking care of the family while their wives stayed at home not allowed leaving without their husbands. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman writes about a woman named Jane who is trapped by society’s cage and tries to find herself. Throughout the story, the theme of self-discovery is developed through the symbols of the nursery, the journal and the wallpaper.
...own destruction” (Welter 66). While Gilman’s narrator did not have all the pillars of true womanhood within her, people who enforced and succumbed to the pressures of the pillars surrounded her. Seeing these people around her, and the lives they lived did nothing for her. She did not want to be imprisoned to her home, acting as a servant tending to her family. She did not want to be reformed to become the ideal woman enveloped in Jennie and Mary. Pulling down the wallpaper challenged the patriarchal ideologies of society showing that women can move beyond the constructions of true womanhood. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” illustrates and simultaneously challenges the ideals of true womanhood depicted by Barbara Welter in “the Cult of True Womanhood” with her ultimate outcome being the opportunity and possibility for the end of oppression of women.
Her story focused on a woman named Jane who couldn’t make their own decisions and the males overlooked them. “The Yellow Wallpaper” was a story about a lady who was forced to live by other decisions and rule of her husband. “My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.” (376) Jane’s husband and her brother never took her ideas very seriously, and laughed on her feelings and ideas. She always felt suffocated in a room with yellow wallpapers because no one appreciated her ideas, which forced her to become, useless and imprisoned in her own home. When Jane requested her husband to change the wallpaper of the room, he rejected her ideas and wished to keep her imprisoned in the room with small windows. The condition of Jane in the story represents the current situation of women in society, they have rights but they are not being listened to. In (DATE) Heather Savigny wrote “Feminisms In News”, the article presented similar ideas as in Gilman’s story. “As with other political movements, it has its detractors, and feminism is often blamed for much that is wrong with our society.” (Heather Savigny) Among all other things, feminism is also important in society but women get blamed for everything wrong. Now-a-days women take same jobs as men, but they don’t get the respect they deserve. The article presented a very clear idea of how women don’t get compensated in the society although they challenge themselves to take same level jobs that men do in the society. Nowadays women are becoming more independent; they have the potential to manage their families by themselves. This proves that women are growing in the society and have a surpassing future. In (Date) Philips Frisk wrote, “The narrative voice tells us that she has a big nose and fat legs, something she is cruelly reminded of by her peers at the onset of puberty.” (Philips Frisk) Just like the small girl in
The setting of these two stories emphasize, on visually showing us how the main characters are based around trying to find freedom despite the physical, mental and emotional effects of living in confinement. While on the other hand, dealing with Psychology’s ugly present day behavior showing dystopia of societies views of women during the time period they lived.
...power struggle. The Yellow Wallpaper has profound symbolism that transcends from Gilman’s personal life. The dominance of John’s over the wife’s is a clear reflection of the dominant differences between men and women in the past. Through the interaction between the characters, and the wife’s inner thoughts, one can say that the women during the time period had very little or no freedom of speech. As well, the confined surroundings around the wife represent how oppressed and imprisoned women were physically and mentally. Gilman’s feminist writing of The Yellow Wallpaper gained her a little bit of that power and freedom she so desired. Gender roles and power differences must be removed from the social order for women to ever be free and equal to those of men—only then will social harmony prosper.
Women have been mistreated, enchained and dominated by men for most part of the human history. Until the second half of the twentieth century, there was great inequality between the social and economic conditions of men and women (Pearson Education). The battle for women's emancipation, however, had started in 1848 by the first women's rights convention, which was led by some remarkable and brave women (Pearson Education). One of the most notable feminists of that period was the writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. She was also one of the most influential feminists who felt strongly about and spoke frequently on the nineteenth-century lives for women. Her short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper" characterizes the condition of women of the nineteenth century through the main character’s life and actions in the text. It is considered to be one of the most influential pieces because of its realism and prime examples of treatment of women in that time. This essay analyzes issues the protagonist goes through while she is trying to break the element of barter from her marriage and love with her husband. This relationship status was very common between nineteenth-century women and their husbands.
The Yellow Wallpaper, Written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is comprised as an assortment of journal entries written in first person, by a woman who has been confined to a room by her physician husband who he believes suffers a temporary nervous depression, when she is actually suffering from postpartum depression. He prescribes her a “rest cure”. The woman remains anonymous throughout the story. She becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper that surrounds her in the room, and engages in some outrageous imaginations towards the wallpaper. Gilman’s story depicts women’s struggle of independence and individuality at the rise of feminism, as well as a reflection of her own life and experiences.
Advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men, Charlotte Perkins Gilman speaks to the “female condition” in her 1892 short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by writing about the life of a woman and what caused her to lose her sanity. The narrator goes crazy due partially to her prescribed role as a woman in 1892 being severely limited. One example is her being forbidden by her husband to “work” which includes working and writing. This restricts her from begin able to express how she truly feels. While she is forbidden to work her husband on the other hand is still able to do his job as a physician. This makes the narrator inferior to her husband and males in general. The narrator is unable to be who she wants, do what she wants, and say what she wants without her husband’s permission. This causes the narrator to feel trapped and have no way out, except through the yellow wallpaper in the bedroom.
Traditionally, men have held the power in society. Women have been treated as a second class of citizens with neither the legal rights nor the respect of their male counterparts. Culture has contributed to these gender roles by conditioning women to accept their subordinate status while encouraging young men to lead and control. Feminist criticism contends that literature either supports society’s patriarchal structure or provides social criticism in order to change this hierarchy. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts one women’s struggle against the traditional female role into which society attempts to force her and the societal reaction to this act.