An Analysis Of The Yellow Wallpaper And The Turn Of The Screw

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The Yellow Wallpaper and The Turn of the Screw each display women being forced into oppression due to their roles in society during the Victorian era. Dominated by her husband who is also proceeding as her doctor, the un-named female narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper is restricted from any interference with the outside world, and her intelligence and creativity rejected. Parallel, the governess as the main character in The Turn of the Screw has limitations placed upon her sexual desires, which are scorned in the role of a pure Victorian woman. Her desires are transferred onto the few male characters in the story, a young boy and the enchantment of a ghost. The actions of these women are too easily dismissed as products of the Victorian mindset when they exhibit complex emotional behaviors that are closely linked to their feminine desire for love, affection, and compassion. Both women have a prescribed existence, differing in conditions of the scenario, and must discover a route of escape through suppression or aggression, contrasting in endeavor and circumstantial manifestation, ultimately with the goal of freedom from the power of their suppressed desires.

In The Turn of the Screw, the author portrays the governess as young, innocent, and naive, which encompasses the ideal of how a young woman should act in the Victorian era. The governess has no outlet to release her sexual desires, causing her to feel emotionally trapped. Her sexual feelings are forced to revolve around Miles, the young boy leaving adolescence and entering puberty whom she is put in charge of governing, directing much of her affection toward his company. The governess expresses her fondness of Miles by embracing him and kissing him, attempting to gain a closer ...

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The forces of suppression and aggression come together in these two stories to unite the women through the power of their desires. The narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper and the governess in The Turn of the Screw each have a prescribed existence, differing by route of escape. They want freedom from the power of their suppressed desires. The governess subdues her sexual tensions by extinguishing the cause, Miles and ghost Peter Quint, and the narrator counters by rejecting the restrictions placed upon her by society and her husband through physical action. Both women destroy the objects of their desire and are further imprisoned by the freedom that they are willing to sacrifice themselves for, due to the fact that freedom of any kind is better than the life of control by the power of desire. The women succeed in freeing themselves from their submissive roles.

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