The constraining bind of the patriarchy is a prevalent theme in many Victorian Era works. From Kate Chopin to Edith Wharton, the topic took on various viewpoints to explain to the male-dominated society how ardent and draining being an idealized Victorian woman was. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman takes on the trending topic through the eyes of a Victorian woman under the influence of a temporary nervous depression. Gilman mirrors patriarchal society through the style and content, the restrictions placed on the narrator, and the liberties the narrator takes to detach from those restrictions.
Through the style and content of the short story, Gilman hints that because the main character is a female, she is not to be taken
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seriously by those around her. Her husband John, a physician, believes there is nothing wrong with her because she has no physical symptoms. Her beliefs on her health are dismissed by her husband. In this way, Gilman may be trying to convey the behavior of men around women. She is merely a woman, a decorative piece for John. When the narrator addresses this behavior, she says, “one expects that in marriage (Gilman 808).” She to stay reserved because she has grown up in a society that disagrees with women who tend to defy their husbands. The actions and dismissive behavior John shows are misogynistic because he refuses to believe that a woman has a better understanding of the overall health of a human being.Gilman may have made John a stand in for the doctors Gilman herself visited when she was being treated for melancholia. In “Why I Wrote The Wallpaper,” Gilman explains that the doctors she visited put her on a rest cure to live a domestic life and be an angel in the house. Therefore, it can be implied that Gilman is being portrayed through the narrator and explaining to the readers that the story’s purpose was to emphasize the misogyny of Victorian men. If a man was to be treated for melancholia during the Victorian Era, their ailment would most likely not be to rest and to remain in domesticity. Rather, it may have been to exercise more often, further supporting the double standard of society. By publishing this paper, Gilman establishes the emphasis on the misogyny she and the narrator faced through style and content. To elaborate on the topic, she provides examples of restrictions placed on women because of the patriarchal burden. The narrator in the “The Yellow Wallpaper” faces many oppressors including the yellow wallpaper itself and John, her husband.
The yellow wallpaper is, by far, the most mysterious and prominent oppressor the narrator has to face. As the story progresses, the narrator falls into a spiral towards insanity. Her diary entries become shorter and when she does write in her diary, she mostly writes an analysis of the wallpaper. For example, after the narrator sees Jennie and John look at the wallpaper several times, she comments on the odor of the yellow wallpaper. She states that the smell “creeps all over the house” and that “it is not bad--at first--and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met ” (Gilman 816). As the odor of the wallpaper swirls around the narrator, she thinks about it constantly, even writing a whole diary entry based solely on the smell. The yellow wallpaper, therefore, may represent domesticity as the narrator strays from being an angel in the house and conforms to the archetype of the woman in the attic. Because John never helps her move out of the room or take the wallpaper down, one may assume that John knows the power of the wallpaper and uses it to make his wife bend to domesticity. Why else would John pick an old colonial mansion to reside in? John may be thinking that the narrator will succumb to domesticity and let go of the idea of being mentally …show more content…
unstable. John is a more subtle oppressor in the story.
If the reader pays no mind to his character, they will think that John is merely a staple of the ideal Victorian husband. Although this is true, John’s character is a representation of the practice of paternal benevolence in a marriage. In the first entry of the short story, the narrator brings up instances of John’s irritating reassurances over subtle yet eerie instincts the narrator seems to have. For example, when they first get to the house, the narrator tells John, “...there is something strange about the house — I can feel it” (Gilman 809). John simply tells her it must be a drought and he closes the window. In the next paragraph, the narrator admits that she does get angry at John sometimes and blames her own nervous system. It seems as though John has waxed over all of her situations and instead of blaming John, she blames herself in true Victorian fashion. In this era, women were to believe that there could be nothing wrong with their husbands. The man was superior and the woman was inferior. When John dismisses the narrator’s instincts and problems, he is belittling her like a parent belittles a child’s instincts and problems. This is further supported later on in the story when the narrator gets up to see the wallpaper move. John says, “What is it, little girl? Don’t go walking about like that -- you’ll get cold”(Gilman 814). Later on, when John tells the narrator that she is getting better and she disapproves, he sits
upright in the bed and begs her to get better for his sake first and then their child’s sake. He later says, “there is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy. can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you to?” (Gilman 814). In these examples, it is more explicit how John views the narrator as a child, a representation meaning to belittle women and romanticize them. It is evident that Gilman wrote John as an exemplary Victorian man and by adding paternal benevolence and his view as the narrator as his inferior, Gilman comments on the misogynistic tone with which society carries itself once again. She further elaborates on this as she writes of John’s disapproval with the narrator’s writing. Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator subtly states that John restricts the narrator’s writing. He never wants to see her writing and only wants her to perform domestic hobbies. On page 810, she writes, “there comes John, and I must put this away — he hates to have me write a word.” John is trying to control the narrator’s actions even if what she does makes her happy or relieves her from the illness. Although it is not explicitly stated, it can be assumed that John makes Jennie, John’s sister, check up on the narrator to see if she is writing. This can be seen when the narrator says that Jennie is coming to the room the narrator is in and writes, “I must not let her see me writing. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick!” (811). Gilman composes Jennie so that it seems that Jennie is looking at the narrator through a male gaze. Like John, she does not want to see the narrator write because it is a male action. This is why the narrator fearfully writes of Jennie coming down the hall or up the stairs. Following the rebellion against domesticity theme, the reason John and his sister may not like the narrator writing is because it was taboo for women to write, analyze, and think critically during the Victorian Era. They were told to stick to domestic hobbies, like needlework. Having the viewpoint be from a woman’s writing lets readers see how women in the 1890s were restricted. It also allows viewers to understand why the narrator and other women during this time had to break free from the oppression of the male-dominated society — to gain liberation and reach the goals women know they can reach without the help from men. The most liberating scene for the narrator and for the reader, who is seeing the narrator’s life from her viewpoint through interpellation, is the conclusion. In the last entry of the short story, it is evident that the creature within the walls has kept the narrator company. She discusses playing with the people in the wallpaper and locking herself in the room until John finds her. The narrator also nonchalantly remarks that jumping out of the window would be great exercise knowing well enough that that would end with a fatal result. When John does appear and panics, she floats over him and 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!” (819). Therefore, at the end of the short story, the narrator has liberated herself from the grasps of the patriarchy. Her contemplation of suicide can be seen in many Victorian Era works including Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. This is because, through suicide, a woman can be free of the restraints of the binding male-dominated society. Although the narrator does contemplate suicide, she faces her husband and walks past him. The act symbolizes the liberation and determination of the narrator from society. In this way, Gilman may be encouraging other women to do the same. By putting the short story through a first person narrative, Gilman may be trying to suggest to women that it is time to stand up for their rights. The scene is empowering because instead of killing of the narrator, Gilman makes the narrator face the male and walk past him in a defying manner. John fainting at the end may also be Gilman subtly hinting that if women stand up for their rights, men will feel powerless and overwhelmed. Charlotte Perkins Gilman provides a fresh and new perspective to the limitation of the patriarchal society by bringing awareness to mentally ill women during the Victorian Era. Along with Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton, Gilman critiques society through her short story. By mirroring her character’s gender, displaying the narrator’s limitations, and liberating the narrator, Gilman empowers women to stand up for themselves during a time when it seemed insurmountable.
The narrator begins the story by recounting how she speculates there may be something wrong with the mansion they will be living in for three months. According to her the price of rent was way too cheap and she even goes on to describe it as “queer”. However she is quickly laughed at and dismissed by her husband who as she puts it “is practical in the extreme.” As the story continues the reader learns that the narrator is thought to be sick by her husband John yet she is not as convinced as him. According
Susan B. Anthony, a woman’s rights pioneer, once said, “Oh, if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done” (“Women’s Voices Magazine”). Women’s rights is a hot button issue in the United States today, and it has been debated for years. In the late 1800’s an individual named Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote literature to try and paint a picture in the audience’s mind that gender inferiority is both unjust and horrific. In her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman makes the ultimate argument that women should not be seen as subordinate to men, but as equal.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, is a first-person narrative written in the style of a journal. It takes place during the nineteenth century and depicts the narrator’s time in a temporary home her husband has taken her to in hopes of providing a place to rest and recover from her “nervous depression”. Throughout the story, the narrator’s “nervous condition” worsens. She begins to obsess over the yellow wallpaper in her room to the point of insanity. She imagines a woman trapped within the patterns of the paper and spends her time watching and trying to free her. Gilman uses various literary elements throughout this piece, such as irony and symbolism, to portray it’s central themes of restrictive social norms
At the time Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” she was considered a prominent feminist writer. This piece of background information allows the readers to see Gilman’s views on women’s rights and roles in the 18th century; “The Yellow Wallpaper” suggests that women in the 18th century were suppressed into society’s marital gender roles. Gilman uses the setting and figurative language, such as symbolism, imagery, and metaphors to convey the theme across.
Like the darkness that quickly consumes, the imprisoning loneliness of oppression swallows its victim down into the abyss of insanity. & nbsp;
In a female oppressive story about a woman driven from postpartum depression to insanity, Charlotte Gilman uses great elements of literature in her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. Her use of feminism and realism demonstrates how woman's thoughts and opinions were considered in the early 1900?s.
The bars on windows, bedstead nailed down, and a gate at the top of the stairs suggest an unsafe place. The narrator’s preference for living in the downstairs room is undermined by John’s control over her. Furthermore, John puts his wife into an environment with no communication, making her socially isolated. The protagonist is home alone most of the time while John is at work. She is not allowed to raise her own baby, and Jennie, John's sister, is occupied with her job.
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper," the reader is treated to an intimate portrait of developing insanity. At the same time, the story's first person narrator provides insight into the social attitudes of the story's late Victorian time period. The story sets up a sense of gradually increasing distrust between the narrator and her husband, John, a doctor, which suggests that gender roles were strictly defined; however, as the story is just one representation of the time period, the examination of other sources is necessary to better understand the nature of American attitudes in the late 1800s. Specifically, this essay will analyze the representation of women's roles in "The Yellow Wallpaper" alongside two other texts produced during this time period, in the effort to discover whether Gilman's depiction of women accurately reflects the society that produced it.
...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.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” was a groundbreaking piece for its time. It not only expressed feministic views through the defiance of a male but also discussed mental illness and the inefficacy of medical treatment at the time. This fictional piece questioned and challenged the submissive role forced upon women of the 19th century and disclosed some of the mental struggles one might go through during this time of questing. Gilman shows however that even in the most horrific struggle to overcome male dominance, it is possible. She herself escapes which again shows a feminist empowerment to end the
Gilman’s story effectively illustrates the natural superiority role men have over women, and portrays how women naturally submit to the supremacy of men. I began looking back at my experience of growing up in Texas, and I began to see how these gender roles are enforced by society, and applied to the people living there. Growing up in a small town, made it hard for women to escape their gender role, because it was considered “unnatural” to do anything else besides be a wife and mother. Gilman understood the naturalness of gender roles to men and women, she explains in her autobiography, stating it is something we are born with and bred to become, she even coined this phenomenon, calling it genealogy (Weinbaum). Through Gilman’s story, the conflict of genealogy is expressed through the narrator and her husband. The narrator becomes more aware of the conventional role that she is destined to become, and that is why she begins to visualize women stuck in the wallpaper. I felt as if I began seeing things, like the narrator. However, my convulsions were about myself, I began visualising a future that does not have to be centered around finding a good wealthy man and having children. That I as a woman, can step aside from my conventional gender role, and rely on myself, and that I do not have to find a man to fulfill my
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” we are walked through the journal of a women who has been diagnosed, by her husband, with what he believes is merely, “temporary nervous depression” (Gilman 216). Since the protagonist’s husband, John, believes the only way she will get better is through moderate exercise, and lots of rest, they rent a house where she can have tranquility and rest until she is better (Gilman 216). At first glance “The Yellow Wallpaper” seems like a simple story of a women trying to get better in a house that she doesn’t particularly like. However, through further analysis it can be seen that through the use of symbolism Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a critique on the role of women in nineteenth-century American society.
For decades now critics have viewed, Gilman’s novella, “The Yellow Wallpaper” mainly in a feminist way, focusing on the way women acted and how they were treated in the 1800s. Although there are good points to the feminist criticism, one could go more in depth by psychoanalyzing it because feminism fit more into the 1800s when women did not have the roles they have today, by looking at the psychoanalytic effect the restrictions had on her, and observing the effects the room had on her.
"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.
The Yellow Paper is a short story published in 1892, and written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Charlotte tells of a disheartening tale of a woman who struggles to free herself from postpartum depression. The Yellow Paper gives an account of an emotionally and intellectual deteriorated woman struggles to break free from a mental prison her husband had put her into, in order to find peace. The woman lived in a male dominated society and wanted indictment from it as she had been driven crazy, because of the Victorian “rest-cure” (Gilman 45). Her husband decided to force her to have a strict bed rest by separating her from her only child. He took her to recuperate in an isolated country estate all alone. The bed rest her husband forced into made her mental state develop from bad to worst. The Yellow Paper is a story that warns the readers about the consequences of fixed gender roles in a male-dominated world. In The Yellow Paper, a woman’s role was to be a dutiful wife and she should not question her husband’s authority and even whereabouts. Whereas, a man’s role was to be a husband, main decision maker, rational thinker and his authority was not to be questioned by the wife.