Oppression of Women in Kate Chopin's The Awakening and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper

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Edna Pontellier of Kate Chopin’s work The Awakening as well as the nameless female narrator of Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper both experienced similar forms of gendered oppression, who have become frustrated with their conventional womanly roles. In having like experiences, these literary works prove effective in relaying the issue of gender inequalities among men and women in the late 1800s to early 1900s. Although both Chopin and Gilman’s portrayal of their character’s dissatisfaction with women’s societal roles resemble one another in more than one way and they both fight for their autonomy, they do differ in the types of independence from a patriarchal society they strive to separate from. The nameless narrator of Gilman’s story fights against the mental suppression that she experiences because of her illness—namely from her husband and doctor, John. Edna from Chopin’s The Awakening fights for a physical independence from her husband and children. In this essay I will explain the ways in which both of these characters are oppressed in a male-dominant society, as well as their attempts to convey their frustration, and the different kinds of independence strove they achieve.

The nameless narrator of Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper suffers from a mental illness that she refers to as “Hysteria.” This type of hysteria that she experiences is a nervous exhaustion that can only be cured by the removal of oneself from all types of stimulation—essentially, bed rest. Needing a little more insight into this “Hysteria” that the narrator was diagnosed with, I read a chapter entitled “Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’” from a book by Paula Treichler. According to Treichler,...

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...s that the Narrator has, is her attempt at trying to gain control of her mental state in which she has been trapped for so long.

While the Narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper strove for independence from the mental suppression she was placed under, Edna Pontellier of Kate Chopin’s story The Awakening fought for physical autonomy from her husband and children. The belief that women of the late 1800s were expected to remain in the domestic sphere and care for their families first before themselves was expected. In doing so they were unable to think of their own wants or desires before that of their families’. The Awakening highlights the physical aspects of feminine roles in this patriarchal society.

Works Cited

Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. 2011. Print.

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