A Woman without a Voice

The casting away of her ring symbolizes Edna throwing off the shackles of society and a loveless marriage to be her own person. She stamps on the ring, showing her distaste for her path in life and her choices in the past. Edna’s madness, and break down, show her deteriorating patience with her life and the mothering façade she wears day to day. Society views her as mad when she moves out of her husband’s house to live on her own. She breaks away from her life to set herself

In desperation she dates Mitch; a man she feels is beneath her but may help her out of her problem by supporting her. When Stanley reveals the truth and her last hope is dissolved all unresolved issues surface and she has a nervous breakdown. After having suffered the loss of her young homosexual husband to suicide and the loss of the final generation of the DuBois family and their estate ‘BelleReve’, it is no surprise that Blanche had been affected by these tragic events. She has tried to avoid the guilt she feels for her husband’s death by having ‘intimacies with strangers’ to ‘fill her empty heart’ and attempts to avoid realism and prefers ‘magic’ by telling ‘what ought to be the t... ... middle of paper ... ...more like a means of a way out the trap she finds herself in. There is evident pathos here as she and the audience are well aware that Mitch came to her house with the intention of raping her.

In the stories “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin both women suffer through expectations brought on by society and the ideas of marriage. Emily loses her sanity trying to obtain love and live up to the expectations of society. Emily kills the man she loved so that he would never leave, and so that she could maintain her reputation. She was put on a pedestal, and that pedestal would end up being her destruction. Louise is a woman afflicted by heart problems, which could relate her unhappiness.

In the story “The Widow of Ephesus” by Petronius, love, loyalty and extreme behavior are translated through the actions of the widow. The widow struggles and endearment allow her to experience an array of emotions. The people view her in the purest of forms in love and chastity, as she mourns the loss of her husband. She deprives herself of all comforts out of grief, and later she is tempted by a suitor only to deny him out of loyalty. Her grief takes her to the extreme of behaviors by fasting, self infliction of pain, and even denying her maid and the soldier simple indulgences as food.

As the story begins, the woman -- whose name we never learn -- tells of her depression and how it is dismissed by her husband and brother. "You see, he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do? If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression -- a slight hysterical tendency -- what is one to do?" (Gilman 658).

She draws the attention of the reader to the fact that she is suffering at the hand of her husband throughout the story, yet she justifies his behavior by saying that she is a burden and that he is “Very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (285). The way she brings up this recurring behavior of John guiding his wife, it is further shown the dominance he has over his wife and the decisions he lets her make. Despite the fact that John forces his wife to stay in the house, she admits how much she craves society and the people she loves (285). Although she tries to share this with John, he doesn’t listen and she... ... middle of paper ... ...aper so that the women can get out (294), symbolizing a kind of desperate sisterhood that takes down the patriarchy and sends women to creep around as they please. She then shouts at John saying “You can’t put me back!” (295).

The confrontation displayed between John lessons the narrators self worth and ma... ... middle of paper ... ...ship is doomed. As time passes, John’s wife’s insanity spirals downwards into self-reflecting hallucinations of her own true being and desire of freedom. Her passion to tear down the wallpaper is metaphorically representing herself to break free of this male dominated relationship and shed free of the social standard regarding the disrespect and lack of equality within her marriage. As she expresses herself by ripping the paper from the wall, she is free and no longer under control. Works Cited Gilman, Charlotte Perkins.

The Yellow Wallpaper Although on the surface The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about one woman’s struggles with sanity it is not. In truth, it is a story about the dominant/submissive relationship between an oppressive husband and his submissive wife. The husband, John, pushes his wife’s depression to a point quite close to insanity. The narrator seems to destroy herself through her overactive imagination and her urge to write. When they arrive she seems well in control of her faculties, but by the time they are readying for departure, she has broken down.

She feels constricted by her husband to speak freely and writes in a hidden journal. Gilman writes “I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind” (808). Sad and true, but she doesn’t feel that she can tell her husband how she really feels and “the only safe language is dead language” (Theichler 61). The language of male judgment and control is predominant in the beginning of the story too. Her husband and brother both are physicians, diagnose her with a nervous condition, and both believe she will be fine with medicine and rest.

Never stable even as a girl, she was shattered by her husband's suicide and the circumstances surrounding it. Later the harrowing deaths at Belle Reve with which she evidently had to cope on her own, also took their toll. By this time she had begun her descent into promiscuity and alcoholism, and in order to blot out the ugliness of her life she created her fantasy world of adoring respectful admirers, of romantic songs and gay parties. She is never entirely successful at this, as the memories of her husband's suicide remain persistently alive in her mind. She retreats into her make-believe world, making her committal to an institution inevitable.