Women were not seen in the past as they are seen now. They were seen as the weaker, less knowledgeable sex. They had to listen to their husbands and they had no say in anything. We are reminded of this when we read “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an activist for women’s rights. With this being said, I believe Gilman’s purpose for writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” was to show the readers women do have rights, this is a changing world, and women don’t have to listen to everything their husband or significant other tells them to do. She does this by the narrator symbolically seeing herself trapped inside the wallpaper and her eventually pulling the wallpaper off the wall and being able to feel free to do whatever she wants. In “Monumental feminism and literature’s ancestral house: Another look at ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’” Janice Haney-Peritz, Department of English (Beaver College), states, “As a memorial, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is used to remind contemporary readers of the enduring import of the feminist struggle against patriarchical domination; while as a boundary marker, it is used to demarcate the territory appropriate to a feminist literary criticism” (114).
There are several scenes/instances throughout this story that show that John sees the narrator, his wife, as being less than he is. These instances are: when the narrator says that she is forbidden to “work” until she is well again, John treats the narrator like a child, John makes her lie down for an hour after each meal, the narrator states that she doesn’t want to irritate her husband, and at the end of the story where she says, “I’ve got out at last in spite of you and Jane and I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back” (Gilman).
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...hen I read the story I just thought that the narrator was crazy. I didn’t like the story and wasn’t sure what I was supposed to get from it. However, I smiled after reading it a second time. After all of this has been said, I hope it shows how and why Gilman’s purpose for writing this short story was to show the readers women do have rights, this is a changing world, and women don’t have to listen to everything their husband or significant other tells them to do.
I am so glad that time has changed and that we no longer have to live in a society where women are not seen as equals.
Works Cited
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper.". N.p.. Web. 10 Mar 2014.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. “Monumental feminism and literature’s ancestral house: Another look at
‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” Women’s Studies 12.2 (1986): 114. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Mar 2014.
Gilman is an author whose writing is based on individuals making up America's collective identity. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is from the vantage points of being a woman, at a time when women were not supposed to have individual thoughts and personalities. At this time in history, the social roles of women were very well-defined: mothers and caretakers of the family, prim and proper creatures that were pleasant to look at, seen but not heard, and irrational and emotional. The identity of women were presupposed on them by men. At the time this story was written, social criticisms were on the rise and writers had more of an outlet to express themselves. Women's suffrage provided by many female writers, such as Gilman, the means to air the wrongs against women.
Ford, Karen. “The Yellow Wallpaper’ and Women’s Discourse.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 4.2 (1985):309-314. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 182. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Literature Resource Center. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
As the story begins, the narrator's compliance with her role as a submissive woman is easily seen. She states, "John laughs at me, but one expects that in marriage" (Gilman 577). These words clearly illustrate the male's position of power in a marriage t...
The time period in which Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written, it was during the Victorian time period where a man’s word was law. It was a very patriarchal society where a family, community, or society is based on a system governed by men. Where men were the sole bread winners and forward thinkers. A woman’s role and identity in
“There are things in that paper which nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder—I begin to think—I wish John would take me away from here!” The late 19th century hosted a hardship for women in our society. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman expressed a form of patriarchy within the story. Gilman never addressed the woman in the “The Yellow Wallpaper” by a name, demonstrating her deficiency of individual identity. The author crafted for the narrator to hold an insignificant role in civilization and to live by the direction of man. Representing a hierarchy between men and women in the 19th century, the wallpaper submerged the concentration of the woman and began compelling her into a more profound insanity.
During this time period women did not encompass the same rights as their male counterparts, nor where they encouraged to participate in the same activities as they. Gillman describes the yellow wallpaper to the readers as a rationalization of what it means to be a woman during this time period. Women were expected to be child-like and fragile as noted, within the text, “What is it child(Gilman, 1998)?” The color yellow is often associated with sickness; in Gilman’s case her sudden illness refers to oppression. She notes as the story, progresses the wallpaper makes her feel sick. Gilman notes, “I never saw a worse paper in my life,” as a symbol in which refers to the restrictions and norms society places on women. Within her literature she addresses restrictions placed on women. Gilman states, “The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.” Meaning, she believed men denying women the right to equality was absurd, and when they did grant women’s freedom it was not equivalent rather a “slap in the face [it knocks] you down and tramples you (Gilman, 1998).” Through her essay she consistently refers to a figure behind the wallpaper. “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out (Gilman, 1998).” Meaning, women during this time period seek to feel free from oppression. The women behind the wallpaper represents the need to speak out, “you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow (Gilman,1998).” Creeping placed significance on the experience of being a woman in regards to, how they should think, feel, act, dress, and express themselves. Gilman notes, “And I 've pulled off most of the paper, so you can 't put me back! " The author used this quote to signify, the woman realized she was
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature 's Ancestral House: Another Look At 'The Yellow Wallpaper '." Women 's Studies 12.2 (1986): 113. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. “Monumental Feminism and Literature’s Ancestral House: Another Look at ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.” Women’s Studies. 12.2 (1986)113-128. EBSCOHost. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.
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.
...women’s roles in society and in the household are. It is quite interesting on how many biased readers and writers we have in this world. There are so many people so quick to label women and men based on very simplistic roles in society. Men believe women have something to prove or justify, but only in the household. Overall, I really enjoyed interpreting this short story and literary reviews by Ann Oakley and Karen Ford.
...ble to see that it actually incorporates themes of women’s rights. Gilman mainly used the setting to support her themes. This short story was written in 1892, at that time, there was only one women's suffrage law. Now, because of many determinant feminists, speakers, teachers, and writers, the women’s rights movement has grown increasing large and is still in progress today. This quite recent movement took over more then a century to grant women the rights they deserve to allow them to be seen as equals to men. This story was a creative and moving way to really show how life may have been as a woman in the nineteenth century.
In the 19th century society was from different from what it is today. Women were not in the workforce, could not vote, or even have a say in anything. Women were not permitted to give evidence in court, nor, did they have the right to speak in public before an audience. When a woman married, her husband legally owned all she had (including her earnings, her clothes and jewelry, and her children). If he died, she was entitled to only a third of her husband’s estate. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wanted to change this. She wanted people to understand the plight of women in the 19th century. In her short story The Yellow Wallpaper she tries to convey this to the reader not just on a literal level, but through various symbols in the story. In The Yellow Wallpaper the author uses symbols to show restrictions on women, lack of public interaction, the struggle for equality, and the possibilities of the female sex during the 1800s.
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.
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.
In conclusion, the yellow wallpaper is a brilliant work literature of which depicts a woman as a permissive and controlled by her dominant husband. While women now enjoyed freedom and peace in a liberal nation like America, we must not forget in the impoverish states like Afghanistan or Pakistan, women are still being enclosed behind the bars of the "Yellow Wallpaper." They, just like in the past, have no right in their society and have no idea that women can actually enjoy the kind of freedom like their male counterparts. "The Yellow Wallpaper" does not only serve as a witness of what has happened in the past, it has also served the purpose of a reminder of what we must be doing in the future to bring freedom and rights to women all over the world.