A common worldwide value that Harwood rejects as the normality in life with her poems. Harwood battles against the traditions that she believes support this downgrading by continually returning to the issue. In “Home of Mercy” there is a line in the poem. Here I believe she is talking about the Magdalene Asylums. It was a place of slave labor laundries from the 18th to the late-20th centuries to house "fallen women", a term used to imply female sexual promiscuity.
This mental illness would be diagnosed based upon her hostility, her criticism, her self-important image and her lack of empathy towards Jane. In fact, Aunt Reed was a candidate for mental insanity just by being herself. Studies by the American Psychological Association show that internal mindsets of an individual, such as hereditary disposition, has an influence on the development of insanity. Aunt Reed was born into a high class family, and when her brother married ‘beneath himself’, it disabled her to love Jane. Even in today’s society, children are judged based on the amount of money and the social status of their parents.
In this essay, I will find out about how The Awakening, a Chopin’s novel, was controversial when it was published and has become a classic nowadays, the themes and controversies in her novel, the artistry and autonomy of Edna, her usage in contrast, nature imagery and cyclical plotting in The Awakening. Being one of the foundation texts in American realism and the feminist movement, “The Awakening” faced sharp criticism because some critics thought ‘its protagonist as an immoral woman”, “the Awakening receive have led to a common misconception concerning the effect of its critical reception” (Green). At that time, Chopin was keep away from society and her novel was banned by many libraries. This fact happened in several decades, until 1990. Then, The Awakening novel was allowed to print and popularize to everyone.
Therefore, in analysing the power of Plath’s symbolism within The Munich Mannequins and applying a Feminist perspective to the poem (although Plath’s role within and around Feminism is extremely ambiguous), perhaps one might be able to understand her writing and the social inequality she presents even further. Plath begins her poem by showing the disdain with which childless women may be treated. “Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children”. This phrase is a
She believes that feminists and feminism attacks marriage and women who believe in marriage and simply being a good mother and wife. An example O’Beirne uses to express these attacks is an excerpt from a book call “The Future of Marriage” by Jessie Bernard. In the excerpt Bernard says that marriage simply holds women back: “Being a housewife makes women sick.” “To be happy in a relationship which imposes so many impediments on her, as traditional marriage does, women must be slightly mentally ill.” O’Beirne says that the feminist movement did nothing but confuse gender roles and weaken the family structure that was established. I personally am not quite sure which side to take so I’m sitting on the fence. I believe that feminists and their movement did do a great deal of good for our society as a whole.
The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” details the struggle that women continue to face through male dominance and domestic violence by way of psychological abuse. Her story is centered on the detail of a woman’s captivity by her husband in order to improve her mental well being. The woman’s thoughts, emotions and imagination all play a vital role in discovering what is causing her state of mental incompetence. Occurring in the late 1800’s, the women’s suffrage movement had not yet occurred. Women were still viewed as being inferior to men and did not have a voice to air their concerns or displeasure.
The Discrimination against Women Identities Throughout history, female were considered lesser beings and nothing more than the property of their husband. In the short story, Blank Spaces by Joanna Cockerline, the acknowledgment of female being inferior creatures in comparison to men is highlighted. Struggle against misfortunes, Elizabeth is oppressed by the social inequality due to the fact that she is a girl. In Blank Spaces, the social inequality implied by the narrative severely impacts Elizabeth’s career hierarchy, character traits, and life experiences. Like many feminist writer, Cockerline focuses her emphasis on how social norm discriminate women by inhibit their job opportunities.
Prescription for Madness “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that portrays the plight of a woman in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s trying to find her sense of self and breaking the mold that society has created for middle class white women. The story is about Jane, the protagonist, who is on the verge of madness after being misdiagnosed and prescribed the “rest cure” for her suffering from postpartum depression. Her husband John, who is a physician, is treating her according to the fashion of the famous nerve specialist, S. Weir Mitchell, which includes total bed rest, isolation from family and limiting intellectual activities such as reading and writing. This story of mental health was written by Gilman, who herself was prescribed the rest cure, to demonstrate how this cure was used by patriarchs of the society to keep women “in line,” that is, intellectually deprived and submissive so that they can be easily controlled but which could backfire and lead to psychosis. In the Victorian age, women were perceived as physically and emotionally inferior to the male-dominated society and this was illustrated by the rest cure.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a dispirited short story that follows the first person account of a female protagonist who suffers from postpartum depression. The protagonist in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is having her illness treated by her husband John, who is a physician. Unfortunately, John’s treatment is having a negative effect on his wife. Perkins Gilman’s usage of symbolism shows various forms of imagery throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The protagonist’s husband’s treatment plan along with the environment that the protagonist is forced to live in shows ironic imagery and anguishing imagery, the yellow wallpaper that surrounds the room is used to show jailhouse imagery, and the windows and the bed are used to show confinement imagery.
Not only does this story have many obvious interpretations, but it also has symbolic interpretations. The so called “prison” that the narrator is in symbolizes the mental prison she is trapped in as well as many other factors in the short story symbolize the repression of women’s rights during that time period. The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Gilman, was published in 1892. At this time, women had little to no rights solely because of their gender. Women were thought of as the weaker sex.