Women throughout history have always been subservient to men, starting with their fathers and ending with their husbands. They were essentially property to own and control as one liked and they could do nothing against it. It isn’t until fairly recently in our history that woman began to make a stand against this creating the feminist movement. With this movement came an avalanche of literature, music and more dedicated to feminism. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman demonstrates woman’s struggle against their societal world throughout a male dominated society. Gilman’s work draws forth, through experience some of the struggles women faced daily and demonstrates the battle for women’s free will. To entirely understand Gilman’s work one needs to know what feminism truly is, that it is about “...not only exposing but, more importantly, with electrifying myriad forms of women's oppression.” (Jean) Feminism has no secret agenda, it is meant to educate people on the struggles that many women face day-to-day at the hands of men. Gilman’s story demonstrates this element by having her main character subject to her husband's wishes no matter what. As the story progresses the reader sees the woman slowly lose her sanity but continuously obey her husband's orders to stay at the house. One gets a look into the troubled mind of a controlled woman; the desire to do something but a voice that tells them no, until they can no longer take it and causes them to go crazy. Their thirst for freedom caused them to do whatever they can to gain some form of control. Early in history women were not allowed there own thought or belief if they went against what the main male figures in their lives believed. Gilman mentions this powerlessnes... ... middle of paper ... ...n Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1989. P95-107., 1986. Web. 5 Feb. 2014. Jean, Shawn St. "Http://www.jstor.org/stable/3178750." JSTOR. Feminist Studies, Inc., 2002. Web. 05 Feb. 2014. Lanser, Susan S. "Feminist Criticism, "The Yellow Wallpaper," and the Politics of Color in America." JSTOR. Feminist Studies, Inc., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2014. Lee, Jid. "Words in Silence: An Exercise in Third World Feminist Criticism." JSTOR. University of Nebraska Press, 1990. Web. 05 Feb. 2014. Oakley, Ann. "Beyond The Yellow Wallpaper." JSTOR. Reproductive Health Matters (RHM), n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2014. Thomas, Deborah. "The Changing Role of Womanhood: From True Woman to New Woman in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "the Yellow Wallpaper":." N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2014. Thrailkill, Jane F. "Doctoring "The Yellow Wallpaper"" JSTOR. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Web. 05 Feb. 2014.
“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
Yellow Wallpaper depicts the nervous breakdown of a young woman and is an example as well as a protest of the patriarchal gender based treatments of mental illness women of the nineteenth century were subjected to.
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.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper'" Ed. Catherine Lavender; The College of Staten Island of the City University of New York, Fall Semester, Oct. 1997. (25 Jan 1999) http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/whyyw.html
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.
Wilson, Kathleen, ed. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Gale Virtual Reference Library. N.p., 1997. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
The "Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Gilman is a great story about the repression of women in the late 1800's but is still representative of issues faced by women today. She writes from her own personal experiences and conveys a message that sometimes in a male dominated society women suffer from the relentless power that some men implement over women.
Golden, Catherine, ed. The Captive Imagination: A Casebook on "The Yellow Wallpaper." New York: Feminist Press, 1992
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Booth, Alison and Kelly J. Mays, eds. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: Norton, 2010. 354-65. Print.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The Story and Its Writer. Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 462-473. Print.
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.
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. “A Feminist Reading of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” The Story and Its Writer. Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. Print.
Golden, Catherine, ed. The Captive Imagination: A Casebook on "The Yellow Wallpaper." New York: Feminist Press, 1992.
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.
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.