In "The Yellow Wallpaper," Gilman shows that the American principle
of liberty did not apply to all Americans in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth century. Specifically it shows that this principle was
not given to women. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," Gilman shows that
American society at the time was oppressive toward women and
that it was dangerous for women to fight back. She establishes a
female narrator that is oppressed literally and symbolically by the
men in her life and the society she lives in. This oppression causes
the narrator, who is suffering from what is probably a post-partum
depression, to sink lower and lower into the depths of insanity. Her
cries for help go unheeded by her husband and she eventually loses
sanity completely. On a symbolic level, this failure of the narrator to
survive in the face of societal oppression can be seen as a warning
to society. Gilman was warning the men of society that they could
not continue to deny women opportunities for equality without
suffering the consequences.
Gilman's female narrator, who either chooses not to fight for her
rights or was unable to do so, loses her sanity at the hands of her
well-meaning husband. Her depression is unexplainable to her and
her husband, who is a doctor. In fact, neither her husband nor her
brother, who is also a doctor, believes that she is even sick. The
narrator feels certain that the "rest cure" prescribed by her husband
is not working. She says that the men in her life are wrong to limit
her activity. She feels that she could escape her depression if given
the chance. "Personally, I disagree with their ideas . . . I believe that
congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me g...
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with a great narrative drive and a shocking ending, to read it only on
a surface level is to miss the deeper meaning of this masterpiece. It
is necessary to look at this story in the context of the time in which
it was written. Gilman lived in a time when women were routinely
oppressed by society and she represented this in her story, both
literally in the husband's treatment of the narrator, and figuratively,
in the pattern in the wallpaper being a prison for the woman or
women behind it. The story, at least on some level, was meant to
be a warning to society that this type of treatment could only lead
to disastrous results. Gilman illustrates this through the narrator's
descent into madness.
The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction, Ann Charters, Bedford/St. Martin's, Sixth Edition (NOT compact) 2003, ISBN: 0 312 39729 1
Throughout history women have been inferior to men. A woman in a patriarchal society had no opinion of value and was dependent upon man from birth to death both financially and emotionally. Both Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Perkins Gillman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" show the repression of women, women as a lesser entity, and further the defiance of societal norms as feministic characters.
Charters, Ann. The Story and Its Writer – An Introduction to Short Fiction. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. Print.
Charters, A. (2011). The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction (8th ed.). Boston: Bedfor/St. Martin's.
"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 wallpaper in The Yellow Wallpaper represents the societal barriers oppressing women. In the beginning, the narrator, Jane, is very skeptical of the wallpaper but does not question it, thus emphasizing how she is trapped by this oppression. However, as the story progresses, she starts to become more intrigued by it. The wallpaper runs parallel to Jane’s life. The more she observes the patterns, the more she acknowledges that in order to seek liberation, she must resist these restrictions placed by the patriarchal society.
Even though her husband treats her with what seem at first as love, it becomes clear she is nothing more to him than a piece of property. Every time he talks to her, he asks her to get better for his sake and the children's, and only after mentions hers interests. He doesn't think that she has any normal human feelings or worries and attributes her behavior to minor nervous depression. He doesn't see her true suffering since he believes "there is no reason to suffer" (574). He could never understand that a woman can be unsatisfied with the role imposed on her by society. Even though the heroine recognizes that her condition is caused by something other than John's theory, she is too scared to voice her opinion.
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:
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author of the short story The Yellow Wall-Paper, wrote a story with a focus on mental illness; while doing so she began a feminist revolution in the late 19th century. The narrator, Jane, is attempting to break free from society’s patriarchal ideals and begins to carve a path for women of the future. While the narrator of the story may not have fully escaped, her efforts mark an act of martyrdom for women’s rights and freedom during this era.
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.
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.
conditions in her life and marriage, she is not able to make real changes – like most of the
A woman driven crazy by post partum depression and a dangerous treatment summarizes the short story of “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The story was influenced by the 19th century women’s depression and their vision of life. Through phantasmagoric symbolism in “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman is able to speak volumes on the destruction and autonomy of feminist self-expression, the restrictions of gender roles, and the patriarchal paradigm.
"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 Victorian period in American history spawned a certain view of women that in many ways has become a central part of gender myths still alive today, although in a diluted way.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" motivated the female mind of creativity and mental strength through a patriarchal order of created gender roles and male power during the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. While John represented characteristics of a typical male of his time, the yellow wallpaper represented a controlling patriarchal society; a sin of inequality that a righteous traitor needed to challenge and win. As the wallpaper deteriorates, so does the suppressing effect that male hierarchy imposed on women. Male belief in their own hierarchy was not deteriorating. Females began to think out of line, be aware of their suppression, and fight patriarchal rule. The progression of the yellow wallpaper and the narrator, through out the story, leads to a small win over John. This clearly represents and motivates the first steps of a feminist movement into the twentieth century.