Similarities Between The Yellow Wallpaper And Ain T I A Woman

In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman portrays a male-dominated society with fixed gender roles for both men and women. The women in this story are stereotyped as typical house-wives who do not aspire to be anything else in life. The men in the relationship are seen as dominant authorities who should not be questioned. Gilman expresses how assuming these roles in marriage can cause the marriage to be unstable and women to become silenced and overwhelmed by domestic duties, leading to injustice. While the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” feels trapped by wifehood and motherhood, Sojourner Truth, in her speech “Ain't I a Woman,” longs for the privileges of wifehood and motherhood. Truth is not characterized as

a “true” woman simply because of her race, but her gender doesn't help her achieve her desired affect. Instead, she is objectified as a tool of labor in the fields and in childbirth.

Both texts portray a society where women are seen as inferior; however Truth shows the African-American point of view, where as Gilman shows the white woman’s point of view. Both texts also resist these stereotypes as Truth and the narrator free themselves.

As a women's rights activist and abolitionist, Sojourner Truth, used her voice to help stand up for African-American women who felt voiceless during the women's rights movement. In her speech, “Ain't I a Woman,” she expresses how she is treated as inferior due to her gender and race. Truth longs for the privileges that many white women are given. She claims, “Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place!” (Truth). She feels that she has worked hard enough to be seen as a “true” woman, and should be given the same privileges as other women. Truth uses examples such as, “I could work as much and eat as much as a man” and “I have borne thirteen

children, and seen most all sold off to slavery” to emphasize the hardships she has faced throughout her life in order to be seen as a woman in the eyes of others (Truth). At the convention, someone suggests that women should not have as many rights as men, because “Christ wasn't a woman!” (Truth). Truth then responds with, “Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him” (Truth). She uses this biblical allusion to emphasize that there would be no Christ without Mary, and to prove that women are just as important as men. She is not characterized as what society describes as a “true” woman, simply because she is African-American. Instead, she is objectified as a tool only to be used for labor. She is not seen as feminine and womanly, as white woman are commonly viewed. Sojourner Truth uses repetition throughout her speech with the phrase “Ain't I a Woman?”. This use of repetition helps emphasize her frustration and desire to expand the definition of womanhood. Sojourner Truth and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” both resist narrow gender stereotypes as they attempt to free themselves from fixed gender roles and their resulting inequality.
The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” assumes the role of a typical housewife, while her husband is seen as superior. The men in her life, like her husband and brother, have prestigious jobs as physicians. Her husband insists that she is not sick, and she says “My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing” (Gilman). Their opinions seem to dictate her life. Another way she appears inferior is the fact that she is nameless. The narrator does not reveal her name to emphasize how she is powerless. She is speaking for all women, instead of speaking as an individual. The unequal relationship between John and his wife is a model for the relationships between man and woman in her society. A literary criticism says, “[John] dismisses her well-thought-out opinions and her “flights of fancy” with equal disdain, while he belittles her creative impulses” (Hudock). He does not acknowledge anything she says, even when she has good ideas. John also speaks to her as if she is inferior by calling her his “little girl”. The “Yellow Wallpaper” uses John and his wife as an example of the unequal roles of men and women.
The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is often left at home by herself, limiting her social interactions throughout the story.

Even when John is home, he doesn't pay much attention to his wife and he dismisses her concerns about her condition. The narrator says, “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad” (Gilman). She is not supposed to question him about her condition or even think about her condition. John is very self-absorbed, which limits him from seeing his wife's condition deteriorating. He never takes her illness seriously. The narrators insanity can be seen growing the longer that she is held in the house. Her husband shows patience in the recovery of her condition; however, the narrator makes it clear that she is not very comfortable around him and feels restricted. She feels that he can never truly understand how she feels. Gilman uses symbolism in the fact that the woman in the wallpaper is trapped in the pattern, as is the narrator. As the narrator observes the wallpaper, she says, “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out” (Gilman). She also says, “At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be” (Gilman).

The narrator emphasizes how she literally feels confined in her home, while also feeling trapped by her domestic duties in the demeaning role of a typical housewife. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is dismissed as inferior throughout the story, because she is a woman.
In conclusion, both texts portray a society with fixed gender roles, where women are seen as inferior. While the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” feels overwhelmed with her housewife duties, Sojourner Truth wishes to be a wife and mother and not to be trapped by her labor in the fields. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is not taken seriously due to the fact that she is a woman. All of her ideas are dismissed as irrelevant, and she is not seen as important, because she is “sick”. Her husband, who is also her physician, dictates her life, and will not allow her to do anything. While the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is denied the chance to do any meaningful work, Truth is used for her labor by her master. Sojourner Truth, on the other hand, is not trapped by wifehood, but rather wishes and longs for it. She expresses how she spends most of her time doing labor and bearing lashes, and how she has seen almost all of her children sold into slavery. She would do anything to be able to be a wife and mother like the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Truth and Gilman both use literary devices, like imagery, symbolism, and repetition, to emphasize their points. Each text displays women being stereotyped and judged by what the definition of a “true” woman is. Both Sojourner Truth and the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” resist these stereotypes of women.