In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, both authors provide evidence for readers to conceptualize the stories through the critical lens of feminism. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story about the unnamed narrator who is taken to an ancestral home by her husband John to be treated for her nervous depression. Meanwhile, she develops a strong dislike for the yellow wallpaper in the bedroom that the narrator is restricted to. The narrator ultimately becomes hopelessly insane in hopes of relieving the women trapped by the wallpaper. Similarly, The House of Mirth tells the story of Lily Bart, a young woman who is trapped by societal standards. She struggles between the relationship of riches, love, and respect. Lily never achieves her goal of marking her status as a social elite because she overdoses and dies at the end of the novel. The narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Lily from The House of Mirth both struggle throughout their womanhood. Edith Wharton and Charlotte Gilman use different point of views to emphasize how eternal forces, such as entrapment, powerlessness, and subordinance of women ultimately lead to their overwhelming confinement in the nineteenth century society.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman immediately gives readers the most important elements at the beginning of the short fictional story. At the opening of the story, the narrator states how her husband John has brought their family to live in an ancestral home for the summer. The narrator considers the house to be strange, but John is quite too practical to see things the way that she does. He already fails to believe that the narrator is actually sick. The narrator begins to take readers on her ever-changin...
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...ness, and subordinance of the world. “The Yellow Wallpaper” and The House of Mirth essentially promote Gilman and Wharton’s demand for change, and illuminate a woman’s struggle to obtain equal possibilities in society through several different viewpoints in these notable works.
Works Cited
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Cassill, R.V. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. 5th Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1995. Print.
Restuccia, Frances L. "The Name Of The Lily: Edith Wharton's Feminism(S)." Contemporary Literature 28.2 (1987): 223. Literary Reference Center. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
Sommerville-Thompson, Mina L. "'Re-Viewing' Charlotte Perkin Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' Beyond Feminism." CCTE Studies 76.(2011): 33-41. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth. New York: Signet Classic, 1980.
“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
In the nineteenth century, women in literature were often portrayed as submissive to men. Literature of the period often characterized women as oppressed by society, as well as by the male influences in their lives. "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents the tragic story of a woman's descent into depression and madness because of this oppression.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, is a first-person narrative written in the style of a journal. It takes place during the nineteenth century and depicts the narrator’s time in a temporary home her husband has taken her to in hopes of providing a place to rest and recover from her “nervous depression”. Throughout the story, the narrator’s “nervous condition” worsens. She begins to obsess over the yellow wallpaper in her room to the point of insanity. She imagines a woman trapped within the patterns of the paper and spends her time watching and trying to free her. Gilman uses various literary elements throughout this piece, such as irony and symbolism, to portray it’s central themes of restrictive social norms
The unnamed narrator finds herself trapped within a large room lined with yellow wallpaper and hidden away from all visitors by her husband-physician John. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a summer spent in the large ancestral hall to find healing through rest turns into the manic changes of her mind. The overbearing nature of her husband inspires a program designed to make her better; ironically, her mind takes a turn for the worse when she believes the wallpaper has come to life. In Janice Haney-Peritz’s “Monumental Feminism and Literature’s Ancestral House: Another Look at ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ ”, she tells that until 1973, Gilman’s story was not seen with a feminist outlook. “The Yellow Wallpaper” was misunderstood and unappreciated when it was published. The patriarchal attitudes of men in this era often left women feeling they had no voice and were trapped in their situations. Although originally interpreted as a horror of insanity, this initial perspective misses the broad, provocative feminist movement that Gilman supported. With the changes in perspective, over time this work has come to have a voice for women and the husband-wife relationship through the theme of feminism.
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.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature's Ancestral House: Another Look at 'The Yellow Wallpaper.'" Women's Studies 12:2 (1986): 113-128.
Gilman, Charlotte. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Literature a World of Writing: Stories, Poems, Plays, and Essays. Ed. David Pike, and Ana Acosta. New York: Longman, 2011. 543-51. Print.
"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.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature's Ancestral House: Another Look at 'The Yellow Wallpaper'" Women's Studies. 12 (1986): 113-128.
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 barter from her marriage and love with her husband.
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.
In the texts: “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, “The Valley of Childish Things” by Edith Wharton, and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the female authors bring attention to the egregious cliche belief of men being more superior than women and of women having to be obedient, well mannered housewives. This common belief that men and society hold causes women to become discouraged to chase after their dreams, depressed from their lack of freedom, and insane, as demonstrated in the texts. The authors employ the literary devices: imagery, symbolism, allegory, and irony, to further substantiate the harm caused by female oppression during the 18th and 19th century. Although the texts are written about the oppression of women during the 18th and 19th century, it is salient to note that female oppression will continue to happen in the future due to the ingrained misconception of women being worth less than males and the dominance that many males feel they need. Female oppression is an issue that will always be talked about no matter the time
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.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories. Mineola: Dover, 1997. Print.
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.