Analysis Of Feminism In The Yellow Wallpaper

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Feminism can be referred to as the equality of sexes through the rights of women. Feminism is the ongoing fight for equal rights among sexes and the protection of women and their legal rights. It has a long-known history throughout the world. The first thoughts towards better treatment of women started in the fifteenth century. Thus, starting the revolution of waves towards women equality. The first wave consisted of women’s suffrage in the Nineteenth century towards the early Twentieth century. In this wave woman also fought for the right to vote and have economic, sexual, and reproductive rights. However, the second wave then was produced in the early 1960s to the late 1980s. This wave consisted on ending discrimination and breaking barriers …show more content…

A well-known feminist author Charlotte Perkins Gilman is known for her feminist views and her intriguing depiction of anxiety within a woman. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman goes into the world of a woman who has been diagnosed with Hysteria and Nervous Conditions. Throughout this story we will see the treatment of our narrator as if she is a nuisance and her diagnosis make anything she is saying to be complete ridiculousness. The doctor who is ultimately her husband tends to show throughout the story how women are treated in society. The husband completely disregards what his wife is saying and tends to belittle her by acting as if her input on her condition is truly preposterous. Not only is her opinion invalid because she is just a housewife but because she is a woman. Instead of valuing what she wants and asks for, John will just pacify her with a terribly lame excuse. John will give excuses like “not enough room for two beds” (Gilman, 648). However, in this story you see that the patient/wife has become obsessed with this wallpaper. “It is within the wallpaper that the narrator finds her hidden self and her eventual damnation/freedom.” (Croder, Feminist Gothic in “the Yellow Wallpaper”). (work more on …show more content…

Woolf’s entire life you will see representations of men who have held power over her from her scarring incestuous relationships in her childhood to the way men treated her writing. In many theories brought up about her, it was thought that it was power over her that she truly disliked. “Maze stresses throughout the book that Woolf s feminism was far from fanaticism or uncritical blindness, that she despised attitudes not sexes, and was against the love of power and authoritarianism, "cloaked as morality," in either men or women” (Kostkowska, page 99) These men in her life have had a power over her, from it being the sexual assault for her half brothers to the men that would not accept her writing for its true beauty as it was. In “The Mark on the Wall” she goes into a stream of consciousness about a mark on the wall that has caused many different thoughts for our narrator. Not many see this short story as political even though it is! The short story was published after World War I, after women just received suffrage. Throughout the short story we will see Woolf’s subtle hints and jokes towards the patriarchy. When our narrator exclaims “Oh! dear me, the mystery of life; the inaccuracy of thought! The ignorance of humanity!” (Klitzke, A feminist Analysis of Virginia Woolf’s “The Mark on the Wall”) this simple quote can define the entire

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