Overwriting Decadence Ann Heilmann Analysis

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In this passage from Ann Heilmann’s essay entitled “Overwriting Decadence: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Oscar Wilde, and the Feminization of Art in “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” the author is introducing a story based upon her own knowledge with a “rest cure” for mental disease. “The Yellow Wall-Paper” has a significance as a feminist text. According to Gilman’s story, he expresses a general worry with the part of women in nineteenth-century society, particularly within the kingdoms of marriage, maternity, and domesticity. This means, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” develops as a symbol of this oppression to a woman who feels trapped in her roles as a wife and mother. The original impulse by her is so solid that she adopts the risk of covertly writing a journal, which she hides from her husband. …show more content…

Placed in the cultural context of the Yellow Nineties, the journey Gilman takes the reader on is thus one that leads from male aestheticism to the vision of a feminized future“(186). This means, the narrator’s feelings of being dominated and victimized by those around her, particularly her husband, is an indication of the many domestic limitations that society places upon women. Furthermore, Heilmann says, “What Gilman suggests, then, is that woman-to woman friendship is even more vitally important than a constructive female-to-male relationship” (186). This means, women are often more understandable than men, that is, sometimes the attitude of men do not let them give women the opportunity to act instead of them. They want to get the important role. On the other hand, women devote only household

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