Within “Jane Eyre” and “The Yellow wallpaper”, both female writers themes focus on similar ideas in how women of the 19th century were manipulated and treated inadequately. Within “Jane Eyre” and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” explore the themes of isolation, male dominance, and sickness the impact that these themes have on the main female characters within the text have similarities but also have there difference that contrast between each of the characters.
Jane Eyre, Bertha and Jane all at some point within the texts face the same fate of being sealed in a room against their own will and are isolated from the outside world. The way, in which Brontë writes allows the reader to sympathize with Jane Eyre’s emotions, experience, including her isolation in the red room. Jane Eyre is a young orphan isolated from her parents due to their death, she lives with her aunt and cousins, she is abused by her cousin John and receives punishment for Johns actions as a young child Jane Eyre recalls that “I shall remember how you thrust me back . . . into the red-room. . . . And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me—knocked me down for nothing” (Brontë 35). Locked into this empty room Jane Eyre becomes physically isolated from the world. Contrasted to Jane in The Yellow Wallpaper the difference is that Gilman’s Jane is trapped within the social world, of John, her “husband”, who also constantly manipulated Jane. He secluded her from the entire world, and he was known as the reason she went mad. If he had not forced her to sit in her room day as seen when Jane says, “I sometimes fancy that in my condition, if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus after day from the rest of the world,” (Gilman 60). then she ...
... middle of paper ...
...way. Mentally Jane and Bertha have completely gone mad, ending in death and complete psychosis.
In conclusion, the three women end up with different fates, they all face similar conditions within their lives. Each woman deals with their circumstances differently and it impacts not only their lives but also the men’s lives that they interact with throughout the story. Both authors highlight the key issues surrounded by the lack of power that women have, isolation, and mental health illness within the Victorian time period through their characters and enlighten the reader to the similarities and differences between the themes that Brontë and Gilman both address.
Works Cited
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Vol. 1. United States: Dover Publication INC., 2002.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Broadview Anthology of Short Fiction 1892: 60-75.
Jane Eyre’s inner struggle over leaving an already married Rochester is the epitome of the new "lovemad" woman in nineteenth-century literature. Jane Eyre is the story of a lovemad woman who has two parts to her personality (herself and Bertha Mason) to accommodate this madness. Charlotte Bronte takes the already used character of the lovemad woman and uses her to be an outlet for the confinement that comes from being in a male-dominated society. Jane has to control this madness, whereas the other part of her personality, her counterpart, Bertha Mason, is able to express her rage at being caged up. As what it means to be insane was changing during Bronte’s time, Bronte changed insanity in literature so that it is made not to be a weakness but rather a form of rebellion. Jane ultimately is able to overcome her lovemadness through sheer force of her will.
In the novel JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte, I felt that in chapter two that the red room was a very dark place where bad things happen. The red kind of symbolizes blood, hell, and torture. The door locks from the outside, that itself is just odd. “O aunt! Have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it—let me be punished some other way! I shall be killed if—” This quote shows what Jane thought about the red room and how much torture it was. She even said she would rather get punished any other way. The red room sounds like a very dark and scary place that nobody should have to witness.
Jane seems to learn quickly that she is the only one who can help her break free from her entrapment. The first place Jane must learn how to leave is Gateshead. She is not happy at Gateshead because is constantly put down by her cousins and even the servants. Helen tries to teach Jane to forgive her enemies in order for Jane to be able move on and gain confidence in herself:
They are written during a time period when women were not viewed as important as men. The narrator from the yellow wallpaper is suffering from post-natal depression and has been recommended the rest of her cure by her husband and her brother, both physicians. Instead of curing her, it worsened her condition. The protagonist did try to convince her husband about what she would prefer, but she could not overcome the powerful authority figure. The narrator is restricted from working, writing, which leads to her obsession with the yellow wallpaper and suffocates her into madness.
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.
In the novel, Jane Eyre starts as a young girl of ten years old; she lives with her aunt Mrs. Reed and her cousins John, Georgiana, and Eliza. At Gateshead, Jane has undergone betrayal in the acts that the Reed family does not treat her as a part of their family. Mrs. Reed treats Jane unkindly and as if she was a victim to put it, in other words, Mrs. Reed says “ take her away to the red-room and lock her in there” (Brontë, Ch. 1). Mrs. Reed
This novel was one of the most radical books of the Victorian Era. It portrayed women as equals to men. It showed that it was possible that men could even be worse than women, through John and Jane. It taught the Victorians never to judge a book by its cover. The novel would not be as successful were it not for Charlotte Brontë’s talent in writing, and were it not for the literary devices employed.
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre chronicles the growth of her titular character from girlhood to maturity, focusing on her journey from dependence on negative authority figures to both monetary and psychological independence, from confusion to a clear understanding of self, and from inequality to equality with those to whom she was formerly subject. Originally dependent on her Aunt Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester, she gains independence through her inheritance and teaching positions. Over the course of the novel, she awakens towards self-understanding, resulting in contentment and eventual happiness. She also achieves equality with the important masculine figures in her life, such as St. John Rivers and Mr. Rochester, gaining self-fulfillment as an independent, fully developed equal.
... Jane tears down the wallpaper and separates from her alter ego as a result obtaining her freedom.
With the death of Bertha, Jane is now able to live with the man she loves. Bertha's death precedes a successful union between Rochester and Jane. When they are finally reunited, they are equal (Showalter 122). When Rochester and Jane finally get together, their relationship succeeds due to the fact that he has learned how it feels to be helpless and how to accept the help of a woman (Showalter 122).
“The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the story of a woman who is trapped in a room covered in yellow wallpaper. The story is one that is perplexing in that the narrator is arguably both the protagonist as well as the antagonist. In the story, the woman, who is the main character, struggles with herself indirectly which results in her descent into madness. The main conflicts transpires between the narrator and her husband John who uses his power as a highly recognize male physician to control his wife by placing limitations on her, forcing her to behave as a sick woman. Hence he forced himself as the superior in their marriage and relationship being the sole decision make. Therefore it can be said what occurred externally resulted in the central conflict of” “The Yellow Wallpaper being internal. The narrator uses the wallpaper as a symbol of authenticy. Hence she internalizes her frustrations rather then openly discussing them.
“The Yellow Wall Paper” is the story about a journey of a woman who is suffering from a nervous breakdown, descending into madness through her “rest cure” treatment. Basically, the woman is not allowed to read, write or to see her new-born baby. Charlotte Perkins Gilman captures the essence of this journey into madness by using the first person narration. The story plot’s is by taking the reader through the horrors of one woman’s neurosis to make strong statements about the oppression faced by women in their marriage roles. The narrator’s mental condition is characterized by her meeting with the wallpaper in her room. In addition to the story’s plot, the use of symbolism and irony throughout her story also show how males dominate during her time.
The three events that mark Jane as an evolving dynamic character are when she is locked in the red room, self reflecting on her time at Gateshead, her friendship with Helen Burns at LoWood, her relationship with Mr. Rochester, and her last moments with a sick Mrs. Reed. Brought up as an orphan by her widowed aunt, Mrs. Reed, Jane is accustomed to her aunts vindictive comments and selfish tendencies. Left out of family gatherings, shoved and hit by her cousin, John Reed, and teased by her other cousins, Georgina and Eliza Reed, the reader almost cringes at the unfairness of it all. But even at the young age of ten, Jane knows the consequences of her actions if she were to speak out against any of them. At one point she wonders why she endures in silence for the pleasure of others. Why she is oppressed. "Always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, forever condemned" (Bronte, 12). Jane’s life at Gateshead is not far from miserable. Not only is she bullied by her cousins and nagged by her aunt, but help from even Bessie, her nurse and sort of friend, seems out of her reach. In the red room scene Jane is drug by Ms. Ab...
The novel, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, has a plot that is filled with an extraordinary amount of problems. Or so it seems as you are reading it. However, it comes to your attention after you have finished it, that there is a common thread running throughout the book. There are many little difficulties that the main character, the indomitable Jane Eyre, must deal with, but once you reach the end of the book you begin to realize that all of Jane's problems are based around one thing. Jane searches throughout the book for love and acceptance, and is forced to endure many hardships before finding them. First, she must cope with the betrayal of the people who are supposed to be her family - her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her children, Eliza, Georgiana, and John. Then there is the issue of Jane's time at Lowood School, and how Jane goes out on her own after her best friend leaves. She takes a position at Thornfield Hall as a tutor, and makes some new friendships and even a romance. Yet her newfound happiness is taken away from her and she once again must start over. Then finally, after enduring so much, during the course of the book, Jane finally finds a true family and love, in rather unexpected places.
Although women had their ideologies and independent thoughts, they were to be represented by their men. Jane Eyre gives a critical evaluation and contributing statements on the facts about female Other in the form of oppression and colonialism. Culture plays a huge role in this part because, in any society, culture overrules some of the most popular practices by Englishmen on their women. The woman captured in Jane Eyre adopted cultural systems that placed her in the house and never allowed her to grow.