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Woman life in the Victorian period
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The role of women in Victorian society
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Recommended: Woman life in the Victorian period
There was a time about thirteen decades ago where society was in a much different state than it is today. While today women aren’t expected to have a specific role in society, that wasn’t always the case back in the Victorian era. In the 1800’s women were treated in a contemptuous manner and they were raised to believe that was normal. This leads to a story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, called, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Gilman illustrates a sick woman resting in what she believes is a secure estate, living with her husband, John. Jennie, John’s sister, and Mary, the nanny who takes care of the baby, are the only women in the house that are not sick. She is in the room, unable to leave, ends up disliking the wallpaper, thinking a woman is …show more content…
The woman has been isolated in the small room with bars at the window much like a person in prison, she is in her own prison mentally. She cannot speak out and leave to socialize with others because the man will get angry for her stepping out of her boundaries. This shows how men were in control and the women were belittled and had no authority around the home. In the house she was given the rest cure because she is “sick”, which could be caused by being too hysterical. As the woman was getting better she said to John, “Better in body perhaps” which demonstrates the tone she is beginning to have, she wants to feel better mentally. John replies with, “I beg of you , for my sake...you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing so dangerous…[i]t is a false and foolish fancy” (652). John is displaying aggression because he does not want the woman to discover his true nature and he convinces it as crazy talk. Subconsciously, the girl is starting to realize her husband should let her leave because she is feeling better and won’t act up
Throughout the nineteenth century, women were considered as the woman of the house. With this title, women were expected to take care of the children, clean the house, and complete chores around the house. Women were not allowed to have jobs and do what they wanted to. Most writers during this time period were men. One of the most famous female authors during the nineteenth century was Charlotte Gilman. Her most famous and controversial short story was “The Yellow Wall-paper”. Charlotte Gilman wrote this short story to change the view on the roles of women in the nineteenth century by using the wallpaper as the oppression of society and the narrator as women mentally breaking away from their roles during this time period.
In “the Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman used that the first feminist wave, which was the period that she raised up, for the background. Especially, she used the men’s power in the book when she started to telling the story:
He tells the narrator time and time again that she is sick. He can be viewed as a very controlling man in which everything must happen his way or not at all. John was a metaphor for the type of society in the 19th century. He is the image of a male-dominated culture where every woman and child had to follow the rules without complaint. The narrator is like a child taking orders from the male doctors in her life, even going on to say, “personally, I disagree with their ideas.”
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper," the reader is treated to an intimate portrait of developing insanity. At the same time, the story's first person narrator provides insight into the social attitudes of the story's late Victorian time period. The story sets up a sense of gradually increasing distrust between the narrator and her husband, John, a doctor, which suggests that gender roles were strictly defined; however, as the story is just one representation of the time period, the examination of other sources is necessary to better understand the nature of American attitudes in the late 1800s. Specifically, this essay will analyze the representation of women's roles in "The Yellow Wallpaper" alongside two other texts produced during this time period, in the effort to discover whether Gilman's depiction of women accurately reflects the society that produced it.
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.
As Virginia Wolfe once stated, “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman” ( ). The word female has had countless meanings throughout its lifespan. Females can be seen as lowly and cheap, regal and sophisticated, or weak and underutilized. It has only been in the last 70 years that women have gained a foothold in society, to gain the rights they deserve. In the late 1800’s a new writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman questioned society’s views on the idea of being female and tried to make them understand that females are a force to be reckoned with and not a doormat for men to step on. She would not stand to be labeled anonymous.
The story "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story about control. In the time frame in which the story was written, the 1800’s, women were looked upon as having no effect on society other than bearing children, maintaining a clean house, and food on the table etc. etc. There was really no means for self expression as a woman, when men not only dominated society but the world. The story was written at a time when men held the jobs, knowledge, and society above their shoulders. The narrator on, "The Yellow Wallpaper" in being oppressed by her husband, John, even though many readers believe this story is about a woman who loses her mind, it is actually about a woman’s struggle to regain, something which she never had before, control of her life.
"The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts a woman in isolation, struggling to cope with mental illness, which has been diagnosed by her husband, a physician. Going beyond this surface level, the reader sees the narrator as a developing feminist, struggling with the societal values of the time. As a woman writer in the late nineteenth century, Gilman herself felt the adverse effects of the male-centric society, and consequently, placed many allusions to her own personal struggles as a feminist in her writing. Throughout the story, the narrator undergoes a psychological journey that correlates with the advancement of her mental condition. The restrictions which society places on her as a woman have a worsening effect on her until illness progresses into hysteria. 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," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, tells the story of a woman's descent into madness as a result of the "rest and ignore the problem cure" that is frequently prescribed to cure hysteria and nervous conditions in women. More importantly, the story is about control and attacks the role of women in society. The narrator of the story is symbolic for all women in the late 1800s, a prisoner of a confining society. Women are expected to bear children, keep house and do only as they are told. Since men are privileged enough to have education, they hold jobs and make all the decisions. Thus, women are cast into the prison of acquiescence because they live in a world dominated by men. Since men suppress women, John, the narrator's husband, is presumed to have control over the protagonist. Gilman, however, suggests otherwise. She implies that it is a combination of society's control as well as the woman's personal weakness that contribute to the suppression of women. These two factors result in the woman's inability to make her own decisions and voice opposition to men.
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.
When comparing the works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Betty Friedan, and Bell Hooks, I assert that both Gilman and Friedan stress that college educated, white upper- and middle-class women should have the incentive to fight against and alter the rigid boundaries of marriage; however, Hooks in her piece From Margin to Center argues that Friedan and other feminist writers during the second wave had written or spoke shortsightedly, failing to regard women of other races and classes who face the most sexist oppression.
The Yellow Paper is a short story published in 1892, and written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Charlotte tells of a disheartening tale of a woman who struggles to free herself from postpartum depression. The Yellow Paper gives an account of an emotionally and intellectual deteriorated woman struggles to break free from a mental prison her husband had put her into, in order to find peace. The woman lived in a male dominated society and wanted indictment from it as she had been driven crazy, because of the Victorian “rest-cure” (Gilman 45). Her husband decided to force her to have a strict bed rest by separating her from her only child. He took her to recuperate in an isolated country estate all alone. The bed rest her husband forced into made her mental state develop from bad to worst. The Yellow Paper is a story that warns the readers about the consequences of fixed gender roles in a male-dominated world. In The Yellow Paper, a woman’s role was to be a dutiful wife and she should not question her husband’s authority and even whereabouts. Whereas, a man’s role was to be a husband, main decision maker, rational thinker and his authority was not to be questioned by the wife.
Gender roles seem to be as old as time and have undergone constant, but sometime subtle, revisions throughout generations. Gender roles can be defined as the expectations for the behaviors, duties and attitudes of male and female members of a society, by that society. The story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is a great example of this. There are clear divisions between genders. The story takes place in the late nineteenth century where a rigid distinction between the domestic role of women and the active working role of men exists (“Sparknotes”). The protagonist and female antagonists of the story exemplify the women of their time; trapped in a submissive, controlled, and isolated domestic sphere, where they are treated as fragile and unstable children while the men dominate the public working sphere.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator and her husband John can be seen as strong representations of the effects society’s stereotypical gender roles as the dominant male and submissive female have within a marriage. Because John’s wife takes on the role as the submissive female, John essentially controlled all aspects of his wife’s life, resulting in the failure of the couple to properly communicate and understand each other. The story is intended to revolve around late 19th century America, however it still occurs today. Most marriages still follow the traditional gender stereotypes, potentially resulting in a majority of couples to uphold an unhealthy relationship or file for divorce. By comparing the “The yellow wallpaper” with the article “Eroticizing Inequality in the United States: The Consequences and Determinants of Traditional Gender Role Adherence in Intimate Relationships”, the similarities between the 19th century and 21st century marriage injustice can further be examined. If more couples were able to separate the power between the male and female, America would have less unhappy marriages and divorces.