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Roles of women in the yellow wallpaper
Feminist analysis on the yellow wallpaper
The Yellow Wallpaper ANALYSIS BY Charlotte Perkins Smith
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In addition, a significant theme displayed in the short story is oppression and the gender roles. This is shown in the analysis “The Yellow Wallpaper Feminist Criticism” by Andrew Wentworth. In this analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper, both John and the narrator are criticized. This is shown in the short story because John is criticized to treat the narrator as an inferior. The narrator is criticized to be a normal women in society who can’t talk back /oppose to her husband until she loses her sanity and goes mad. This shows some examples of how John and the narrator are criticized. While speaking on the topic of role of women in the society, Wentworth states “John is a textbook example of a dominating spouse, a husband who holds absolute control
“The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.” The woman had started seeing another female in the wallpaper, imprisoned behind bars and shaking the paper to be freed. The wallpaper began depreciating, and so did the conquering influence that male hierarchy forced on women. Women arose to reason out of line, be conscious of their overthrow, and conflict patriarchal statute. The development of the yellow wallpaper and the narrator, within the story, indicates to a triumph over John.
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:
Perhaps the biggest symbol in support of my statement would be the yellow wallpaper itself, hence the name of the story. “I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal—having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.” She also claimed that “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.” She is restrained from both writing and reading, so her mind settles onto the wallpaper as her source of literary work instead. This supports my thesis statement because men viewed it “proper” for a woman to be entirely dependent on a man, even though it was economically and socially damaging.
The Mistreated and the Mislabeled. Physicians who are gender biased tend to misdiagnose and mistreat patients because of their ignorance and poor communication. The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a captivating socio-political allegory expressing how cultural expectations can shape and effect the mind of a creative woman suffering from what could be assumed to be a severe case of postpartum depression. Gilman, uses a unique epistolary form point of view using the journal belonging to a character assumed to be by the name of Jane, who is the wife and patient of a physician named John. She provides a chilling and alluring setting to vividly depict the grave consequences of gender bias doctors who are mistreating and mislabeling patients.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" is about a creative woman whose talents are suppressed by her dominant husband. His efforts to oppress her in order to keep her within society's norms of what a wife is supposed to act like, only lead to her mental destruction. He is more concerned with societal norms than the mental health of his wife. In trying to become independent and overcome her own suppressed thoughts, and her husbands false diagnosis of her; she loses her sanity. One way the story illustrates his dominance is by the way he, a well-know and established doctor who should know better than to diagnose a family member, diagnoses her as having a temporary nervousness condition and what he prescribes for her illness, which is bed rest. Without asking her, he takes her to their summer home to recover from an illness that he doesn't believe she has. He tells her there is "no reason" why she feels the way she does; she should get rid of those "silly fantasies." In saying this to her, he is treating her like a child who doesn't really know how she feels, thus making her doubt herself. When she tries to tell him what she needs, she is completely shut out and ignored. "I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus-but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad." This statement has a two-fold meaning, in the first part of the sentence he reveals part of his insecurity problem. He is not interested in getting her help because he doesn'...
One of the notions the authors use to explore this is through the roles of Husband and Wife. The expectations and rules that are placed upon both couples from the texts in order to fulfil their role, influence their relationship, the plot and the way in which their character exists in the world of the story. The two opposing roles reflect the idea of masculinity and femininity being “a highly polarised binary” (Harper 509) where the two notions “gain meaning only in relation to the other” (509). Throughout The Yellow Wallpaper, we are able to glimpse the structure that surrounds these roles through the way John and the narrator act and the relationship between them. John’s treatment of the narrator is very much reflective of that of a caring yet controlling husband. Although John is portrayed as someone with good intent, his actions convey how he seeks to control his wife. He refers to her as a “blessed little goose” (28), asserting the narrator as a docile and delicate figure in a somewhat patronising manner. Throughout the text, John displays himself as the caring husband who wishes to be able to handle his wife following her illness, he reads to his wife until she falls asleep and
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.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman is remembered today principally for her feminist work "The Yellow Wallpaper." It dramatizes her life and her experience with Dr. S. Weir Mitchell's now infamous "rest cure." Commonly prescribed for women suffering from "hysteria," the rest cure altogether forbade company, art, writing, or any other form of intellectual stimulation. When Mitchell prescribed this for Gilman, he told her to "'live a domestic life as far as possible,' to 'have but two hours' intellectual life a day,' and 'never to touch pen, brush or pencil again' as long as I lived" ("Why I Wrote . . . n.p.). It nearly drove her insane. She began to recover only when she returned to her art and writing, and subsequently wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" to alert others to the perils of the rest cure and its attempt to stifle creativity. It raises the question, stated by Conrad Shumaker, "What happens to the imagination when it's defined as feminine
The short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman perfectly portrays and embodies the suppression of late nineteenth-century married women in a male-dominated society which resulted in a whole class of people plagued by the severe mental ramifications of this defective structure. The plot greatly aligns with a personal experience the author (Gilman) had in which the constraint of her freedoms following the advice of her doctor drove her near the edge of madness, nearly making "The Yellow Wallpaper" a personal account of these events. During this period in the nineteenth-century women held very few legal rights and were actively expected to take on the role of homemaker and were often bombarded by oppressive gender stereotypes,
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.
In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” we find out that the women in the story is crazy but after being in that room and not being able to leave or go outside the woman because even more crazier throughout the story. The author of this story is named Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This story is actually somewhat based of a part of Gilman’s life experience. If you continue to read more than one of her stories you start to realize she is a feminist write. Gilman’s feministic style is seeded in a rich background of rough relationships which is portrayed through her writing.
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”, we can ultimately see the separation of gender roles within the two characters. John in the story is the upper class male, upholding a high standing occupation as a physician, while his wife does not even receive a name, assumed the narrator of the text. Being that John receives a role within society, while his wife is recognized as nameless; it is evident that the two characters have developed an overall inequality taking on their gender roles. John is represented as “practical in the extreme, He has no patience with faith, an int...
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was crafty. Taken at face value, her short work, The Yellow Wallpaper, is simply the diary of a woman going through a mental breakdown. The wallpaper itself is the arbitrary object on which a troubled mind is obsessively fixated. The fact that Gilman herself suffered from a nervous breakdown makes this interpretation seem quite viable. This explanation is, however, dead wrong.
"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.