Kamara Bellis Buckner English 1301 25 JUN 09 The Victorian Woman’s Insane Treatment in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” During the Victorian era, woman were to be dependant and obedient of their husbands. They were not allowed to pursue careers or interests. Gilman, being a woman of this time experienced this oppression first hand. She had been diagnosed with a nervous condition and was ordered to bed rest after the birth of her child. This ill-fated treatment prescribed by her physician Weir Mitchell, whom she referenced in her story, drove her to the brink of insanity.
ENGL220 Assignment 1 MINJI KIM Setting in the late nineteenth century, Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour illustrates a woman’s emotional changes after she heard of her husband’s death. Although it is written long before and it is just a short portrayal of an emotional repression of a woman of that time, The Story of an Hour still is a thought-provoking story even for the contemporary readers. Louise, who has heart problem, is carefully told that her husband, Brently, is killed in a railroad accident. She goes upstairs to her room sobbing. Looking outside the open window, she feels the spring air, and suddenly feels the unexpected joy.
Relishing in Robert’s attention, new feelings “awaken” and unleash themselves beginning an intense change in Edna and liberating her. She comes to realize that she has discarded her youthful hopes and dreams and that her current life is unfulfilling. Edna starts to take small steps toward freeing herself. This desire of freedom results in infidelity that fills her void to some extent, at the expense of her marriage and motherhood. Pontellier lived in the late nineteenth century, a time frame in which the society imposed many restrictions on the role of the
Examine how Charlotte Perkins Gilman challenges attitudes towards the role of women in society through her use of form, structure and language in the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” Charlotte Perkins Gilman challenges attitudes towards the role of women in society through her use of form, structure and language in numerous ways. The story is a fictionalized autobiographical account that illustrates the emotional and intellectual deterioration of the female narrator who is a wife as well as a mother. The woman, who seemingly is suffering from post-partum depression, searches for some sort of peace in her male dominated world. She is given a “cure” from her husband (a doctor) that requires strict bed rest and an enforced lack of any form of metal stimulation. As a result of her husbands control, the woman develops and obsessive attachment to the wallpaper which masks the walls of her bedroom.
Although it was just one unfortunate couple so terribly disturbed, they may represent the thousands of unnoticed tragedies that occur. The poem depicts one tragic death paralleling it with the loss of love and familiarity. The poem is from a woman, whose husband had recently died, as an expression of her sentiments. I believe the poem was a monologue and the woman was speaking to herself in a loss. It could also be interpreted as a funeral speech because she makes strict orders to aid her mourning.
Though “The Story of an Hour” is a short story, its author Kate Chopin ensures the reader experiences no shortage of character development. Chopin introduces readers to the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard during the very first line of the story. The readers enjoy a layered uncovering of Mrs. Mallard’s personality and inner most feelings and desires, and witness the transformation of Mrs. Mallard throughout the story. At the onset of “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard learns of the sudden and tragic death of her husband Mr. Mallard. Kate Chopin then proceeds to take her readers on an emotional journey as the initially frail Mrs. Mallard allows her mind and her heart to explore life after Mr. Mallard.
What do you think about the idea of female emancipation in “THE STORY OF AN HOUR” explained through Mrs Mallard by Kate Chopin? When Mrs Mallard got to know that her husband is dead, the desire of emancipation get started in her. Mrs Mallard has a deep inner life that is not connected to the outside world of her husband or friends and the fact that she cloisters herself in her room to discover her feelings is important. The world outside of her own bedroom is only minimally described, but the world inside of her mind is lively and well described by the narrator. The numbness and non-reaction of Mrs Mallard, when she heard the news of her husband’s death shows the conflict with her husband.
It is at the revealing of Mr. Mallard’s death that Mrs. Mallard begins to act unpredictably. It was reaction to the news that felt only surface deep, “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment…when the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone.”(Chopin 223). Mrs. Mallard’s actions after the news of her husband’s death reveal the oppression she faced throughout her relationship. Mrs. Mallard concedes the oppression she faced in the text when she says to herself, “There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and woman believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.” (Chopin 224) Mrs. Mallard
Medea’s treatment of family explores the relationship between a tainted mother and her acts against her cheating ex-husband, while The Cherry Orchard’s treatment of family is shown in the way they accept all who enters their lives in the tough times of 19th century Russia. William Congreve quoted in one of is plays that "heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned." (Congreve, 1967, Act III, scene viii.) This can be applied to the character of Medea. While taken to extremes, it is clear that this woman had no respect for her family – especially her children.
There's death as the finish of life, and the enemy, of mortal life. It's as an inevitable finish that has got to be accepted, developed through the character of the Mother, who typically laments the deaths of loved ones, while stoically enduring these painful losses nevertheless. While discussing the theme of gender I suddenly realized that in Blood Wedding, Lorca presents several opposing views of women’s correct role in society. The Mother and the Mother-in-Law both advocate for ladies as being cloistered behind “thick walls” when marriage, for their personal safety as well as to preserve their fragile psyches. The Bride feels constrained by the obligation to marry in any respect, not to mention to be sealed far from society for the rest of her days.