Nicole Poirier English 102-004 Dr. Bruce Magee February 7, 2014 The Yellow Wallpaper: Oppression of Women in the Nineteenth Century The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is an American short story written at the end of the nineteenth century. This is a story of a woman who has been shut off from the rest of the world as a cure to her neurasthenia, a disease relatable to what is known as depression today. The Yellow Wallpaper was written as an attack on the ineffective cruel treatment of the “rest cure”, which the author had to suffer through herself. The parallels between Gillman’s experience and the narrator’s, as women of the nineteenth century, are evident in this story. Women’s reality, such as Gilman’s, in this time period was being a submissive wife with few rights in society.
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.
In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and Trifles by Susan Glaspell, the audience can further understand how terrible life for women was. After reading both texts it is simple to compare the lives, the relationship with their husbands, and the society both women lived in. These two women live similar lives mentally and emotionally. Women lived very differently before they had equal rights. There was a limit to what they could do or own.
“The Yellow Wallpaper”: Unknown Insanity The 19th century was filled with a lot of unknown illness and disorders. Charlotte Perkins-Gilman chooses to write about the unknown illness in which some women faced at the time. The 19th century was also a time where women had fewer rights than men. This may have contributed to one of the ways the story is set for the narrator’s insanity. The narrator’s insanity is caused by her husband, the treatment prescribed for her, and her obsession with the yellow wallpaper.
Stimulated by the frustration of the masculine control that dominated the Victorian era, Virginia Woolf displayed her genuine feelings of repression in her essay “Professions for Women.” Written in 1931, Woolf discusses the internal struggles many women deal with everyday, and how she was able to overcome these stereotypes of women to become an individual. In Barbara Ehrenreich’s essay, written in 2001, “Nickel and Dimed,” she recounts a time in her life where she left everything behind to investigate the difficulties low-wage workingwomen face. While both were faced with challenges, the way each of them handled these challenges was very different. Virginia Woolf shows her self-motivation to do well and become respected by others for her mind and dedication, regardless of the fact that she was a woman. Barbara Ehrenreich has a difficult time going from middle class, to a low wage cleaning lady living in a world controlled by a male.
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.
Steinbeck uses Curley's wife's character to depict the inferiority of women. He also uses her to inform the reader of the dire range of choices for women of that era. Steinbeck creates the character of Curley's wife to show the reader that life as a house wife is dull and repetitive. He does that by making Curley's wife not fit into the expected mould of a married house wife. She is a lonely character constantly searching for attention, even if it is from ranch workers, cripples and the coloured.
‘For Anna, the year of the plague is about the journey from ignorance to knowledge.’ Discuss. Geraldine Brooks depicts Anna, the protagonist of her historical novel ‘Year of Wonders’ set in the plagued town of Eyam 1666, as a forcibly ignorant character, that progressively evolves into a knowledgeable and wise woman. Stuck in a male dominated, patriarchal society, Anna was never able to become a real contributor to the community until her ‘journey’ led to become an educated and experienced person. Whilst it is thought that the ‘year of the plague’ is mainly about the grief and despair the town suffers through, and the loss they must deal with, for Anna, it was the perfect opportunity to evolve into the greater person she became. Anna did not bloom to the knowledgeable being she became by herself, but she did so with the help of many catalysts during the plague year.
Chopin’s story gave insight from a different perspective on the characters and situations in “The Awakening.” Psychoanalyzing the character Edna Pontellier was one of the easiest characters to analyze. She was going through what many women went through in that time of history. Women were filled with resentment in those days. Edna became the woman who life was only about taking care of her husband and children, which lead her to become more resentful and full of regrets when it came down to her life. “Her marriage to Leonce Pontellier was purely an accident, (Chopin, 1899).” Chopin developed the character Mrs. Pontellier that many women were in that day.
Krunal Patel Essay 1 Revison Jan 30th, 2012 The Yellow Wallpaper: Socio-Political Allegory “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Parkins Gilman is a gothic horror tale filtered through numerous thoughts of the narrator’s fluctuating mind set. The story depicts a woman with an unhappy marriage whose life is filled with vast amount of loneliness, anxiety, sarcasm and depression and how she relieves herself from false notions of society in late 19th century. The narrator of this story is an upper middle class woman named Jane who is suffering from a nervous breakdown which gets worse as time passes. She was deprived of her escalation by her own husband who served as her marionette. The struggle between her and her husband John, who is also her doctor, serves as a major conflict of the story.