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Social ills of the yellow wallpaper
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Obsession Overcomes Oppression
In the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, the reader is taken into the mind of a mentally disturbed woman named Jane who has been imprisoned by trying to fit the stereotypical wife mold of the nineteenth century. The reader is able to take opinions from Jane which reflect the stereotypes of frailty and the nurturing roles given to women. These opinions close all of the doors for the emotions taking place except those of Jane. By showing the story from her perspective, a bias of men is formed. Through Jane's perceptions of her surroundings, the reader is able to understand how men assign the roles of women and essentially, drive them to madness. In learning of Jane's plight as seen through her eyes, a sense of empowerment develops amongst feminist supporters. Not only is there a strong theme of women's oppression by their male counterparts, but the reader is also able to see how this oppression can drive a woman further and further into lunacy.
The narrator, Jane, is suffering from a "temporary depression." She tells us in the beginning that "John is a physician, and perhaps I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind perhaps that he is one reason I do not get well faster." Jane creates a story that expresses the results a woman must deal with while in the care of a man. She certainly loves and trusts her husband but at the same time she has some deep-seated feeling that his treatment of complete and total bed rest is not the best remedy for her. Jane also points out that she has an older brother who is also a physician and agrees with her husband. As a consequence, Jane has no choice but to subjec...
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... up for what she wants and needs. Nevertheless, in doing so she shows her insanity when she is hysterically ripping away the wallpaper and saying that now he can never put her back in there. This is the rock bottom for Jane and her final decent into complete madness.
Jane is undoubtedly in an internal struggle to overcome the male dominance that has been placed upon her. She is a perfect illustration of the position women held in society at that time. As the product of a society that frequently accepts women as being below men, she only wants to escape victorious in freeing herself from her husband's control. Jane simply wants company and support which anyone should be allowed to have. Jane's emotions and ideas exemplify those of all women who struggle to make a place for themselves in a male dominated society. Jane can now "creep" openly when she wants to.
Due to Jane’s husband enforcing a life in confinement due to her nervous breakdowns, it only takes a little time for the isolation to drive her mad. In the beginning of the story, it is clear that the narrator, Jane, suffers from post-natal depression, which is a common effect after childbirth. The way Jane sees her living quarters is much different than it actually is. She imagines the rings on the walls, the torn up wallpaper, and the bars on the windows as a nursery or a school for boys, when those features actually lead the audience to realize that it is a room for the mentally ill. Her husband, also her physician, believes that in order for her metal illness to be cured is to forbid her from exercising her imagination, working, and to keep her locked away. However, his theory proves to be wrong when her mind begins to see a world inside the wallpaper, caused by the abuse from confinement. Although her husband is doing this for what he thinks is best for her well
The narrator finally achieves an authoritative position in her marriage, with John unconscious and her creative imagination finally free of all restraints. Her continual “creeping” over his prone body serves as a repeated emphasis of this liberation, almost as if the narrator chooses to climb over him to highlight his inferiority over and over again” (Harrison). John was a weak person, Jane suffered from a nervous disorder which was made way worse by the feelings of being trapped in a room. The setting of the nursery room with barred windows in a colonial mansion provides an image of the loneliness and seclusion she experienced. Periods of time can lead to insanity. Maybe her illness wasn’t that bad but he made it worse on her part because he was a sick husband. Some critics have argued “Is the narrator really liberated? We’re inclined towards saying “no”, given that she’s still creeping around the room and that her psyche is broken”
From an early age Jane is aware she is at a disadvantage, yet she learns how to break free from her entrapment by following her heart. Jane appears as not only the main character in the text, but also a female narrator. Being a female narrator suggests a strong independent woman, but Jane does not seem quite that.
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 gender binary portrayed in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman assesses society’s lack of respect for women with mental illness and their subsequent isolation, concluding that the binary hinders a woman’s recovery. In the story, Perkins creates a situation where in order for Jane, a woman with post-partum depression, to overcome her illness she must first utilize her insanity to eradicate the restrictive, inhibitive social expectations placed on her. Only then can Jane retake control of herself and demand the treatment she knows is necessary. The story is told in the present tense and the narrator speaks in first person, creating a sense of intimacy between the narrator and the reader. Perkins capitalises on this intimacy, highlighting the narrator’s normality and later juxtaposing it with her insanity at the very end of the story, in order to demonstrate the extreme measures Jane takes to treat her own mental illness. Dispersed through the text, Perkins leaves hints about Jane’s condition and her transformation into the creeping woman. The first example of this is when the narrator calls her husband a “young man,” addressing him from the perspective of the creeping woman, to whom John is a stranger. By calling him “young” the creeping woman suggests that she is wiser than him as well as older. Although this change in perspective is slight and hardly noticeable, it foreshadows Jane’s future transformation.
Mrs Reed keeps Jane only because of a promise she made to her husband on his deathbed. This abuse and neglect from her relatives forces Jane to be resentful and full of hatred. Later on Jane begins to stand up for herself. Once Jane begins to rebel to the abuse done by John and Mrs Reed, it is as if an uncontrollable beast had been unleashed inside of her.
We learn that Jane is a young girl who is a victim of emotional and
"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.
Oppression and oppressive acts have been weaved into everyday life in the United States throughout much of its history. One specific time in American History where oppressive acts took place was during WWII, specifically Japanese Internment. Japanese Internment was when the Japanese living in the United States, two thirds of them being citizens, were forced to evacuate their homes and were then put into camps. The struggles of the oppressed during these times are highlighted throughout the article, “Home Was a Horse Stall.” Another example of oppression happening in history is found the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by women’s right activist, Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In the story, a woman is oppressed by her husband, also her doctor,
First, the 1900’s is a time where women are trying to put away the homemaker image and obtain work. This causes many hardships between husbands and wives. Jane is on the verge of beginning to leave her homemaker image and begin a career in writing. “I am sitting by the window now, up in the atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing much as I please, save lack of strength” (Gilman, 1599). Jane is starting to recognize that she is loosing her feminism. John recognizes this and tries to do everything he can to stop Jane. John knows that Jane is putting aside her role as being a wife, homemaker and mother. In these times, husbands’ do not believe that women could balance both home and work responsibilities. Jane decides to oppose the homemaker life and branch out into writing. The feminist role is “The concept of "The New Woman," for example, began to circulate in the 1890s-1910s as women are pushing for broader roles outside the home-roles that could draw on women's intelligence and non-domestic skills and talents” (http:/...
Jane does not experience a typical family life throughout the novel. Her various living arrangements led her through different households, yet none were a representation of the norm of family life in the nineteenth century. Through research of families in the nineteenth century, it is clear that Jane’s life does not follow with the stereotypical family made up of a patriarchal father and nurturing mother, both whose primary focus was in raising their children. Jane’s life was void of this true family experience so common during the nineteenth century. Yet, Jane is surrounded by men, who in giving an accurate portrayal of fathers and masculinity in the nineteenth century, fulfill on one hand the father role that had never been present in her life, and on the other hand the husband portrait that Jane seeks out throughout the novel.
"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.
There are multiple possible causes for the internal conflict the narrator faces. The first being nervous depression and the other is the fact that her life is being controlled by her husband. Her husband is in full control because in the beginning of the story, John, her husband, influences how she should act. He decides the actions that should be taken in regards to her health and sanctity. Although she finds herself disagreeing with his synopsis, she is confined and does not admit how she feels to him. This also brings about another a major conflict that occurred in the 19th century, men being dominant and woman being categorized as inferior. Evidence can be found when the narrator states, “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband assures friends and relatives that there is nothing the matter with o...
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story told from the first person point of view of a doctor's wife who has nervous condition. The first person standpoint gives the reader access only to the woman’s thoughts, and thus, is limited. The limited viewpoint of this story helps the reader to experience a feeling of isolation, just as the wife feels throughout the story. The point of view is also limited in that the story takes places in the present, and as a result the wife has no benefit of hindsight, and is never able to actually see that the men in her life are part of the reason she never gets well. This paper will discuss how Gilman’s choice of point of view helps communicate the central theme of the story- that women of the time were viewed as being subordinate to men. Also, the paper will discuss how ignoring oneself and one’s desires is self-destructive, as seen throughout the story as the woman’s condition worsens while she is in isolation, in the room with the yellow wallpaper, and her at the same time as her thoughts are being oppressed by her husband and brother.
At the beginning of the book, Jane was living with her aunt Mrs. Reed and her children. Although Jane is treated cruelly and is abused constantly, she still displays passion and spirit by fighting back at John and finally standing up to Mrs Reed. Even Bessie ‘knew it was always in her’. Mrs. Reed accuses Jane of lying and being a troublesome person when Mr. Brocklehurst of Lowood School visited Gateshead. Jane is hurt, as she knows she was not deceitful so she defends herself as she defended herself to John Reed when he abused her, as she said “Wicked and cruel boy! You are like a murderer – you are like a slave driver – you are like the Roman emperors!” to John Reed instead of staying silent and taking in the abuse, which would damage her self-confidence and self-worth. With the anger she had gotten from being treated cruelly, she was able to gain ...