She isn’t aloud to do any kind of work and is given strict instructions to get air and relax her self. She spends most of her time in a room that she suspects to be an old play room for the past owner’s children. The room is covered with yellow wallpaper which taunts her with images and patterns that she sees. She is mesmerized by the images and they consume her. She loses her touch with reality and becomes one of the creeping women she sees.
Even though she knows that a woman being educated is not usual she believes all women should receive a quality education. “Yet only to teach men and not to teach women – is that not ignoring the essential relation between them?” She uses her statement to advocate for women passively while still holding men in a higher position. She believes that women should be educated to better serve their husbands because that would help to keep the cycle going. Education for Ban Zhao started before she was married and even after her husband died. Ban Zhao continued to write and never remarried.
Most likely Jane is kept it the room for the reason that she is sick and needs a rest cure treatment. When more questions are asked about Jane’s sickness then the readers can conclude what is really going on. The reader knows that Jane is a patient and the house is specially made. Now a new question comes up; “Is Jane crazy?” The reader finds information in the story that Jane is highly imaginative, seeing things, creeps around the room, addicted to wallpaper, repeats the same words over and over, talks is “gentle” voice, cries at nothing and not sleeping at night. What the reader can draw from the story is that the woman is mentally ill and is currently being treated for her illness in the mental institution.
Sylvia Plath’s first and only novel ‘The Bell Jar’ focuses on the protagonist and narrator Esther Greenwood; The Bell Jar is a story of how Esther descends into a dark and depressive state and how she eventually overcomes the illness, even if it was not permanent. The theme of female oppression is highlighted throughout the rest of the novel. The novel also highlights the idea that the people that surround you can push you to conform, even though you do not want to, for instance Esther’s mother constantly attempts to force Esther into a stereotypically female job such as a short-hander, the idea that women are only suitable for easier, less fulfilling professions. The protagonist, Esther, explains her desire to explore and rebel against the ‘norm’ for woman in the 1950’s society. "The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from.
Short Story Analysis Have we ever read a story that just didn’t make sense at all when first read? That the descriptions in the paper just create vivid pictures in our mind that are kind of disturbing. That is exactly how this short story was constructed. In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author uses symbolism, imagery, irony, and theme to show the subordination and trapped role of women in domestic life. Gilman uses symbols to explain the how women are trapped in domestic life.
The two short stories show how two women have felt trapped due to their situations. In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the woman is portrayed to have an illness and trapped in a room by her husband in order to get better. In A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, Emily's father has overprotected her denying her a normal life. When he dies she is left with no one guiding her and she decides to trap herself in her house. In the two short stories, both women feel repressed in their role unwillingly to escape their room leaving them to have a distorted reality created by their mind.
The ugliness of the yellow wallpaper can be compared to the ugliness of her life at the time of the story, the way her husband doubts her illness and her not being able to break free from his grip. The nursery symbolizes how women were seen on the same level as children. A woman’s role during this time was one of confinement and the barred windows are symbols of this. The narrator tearing down the yellow wallpaper to find the woman represents her attempt to regain her sanity. The wallpaper is her confinement and by tearing it down she frees herself.
His mother, who was caring mother who had protected the young Hitler from brutal father, influenced Hitler’s views about women. Because of his mother, Hitler thought that the only role for woman was domestic; these views were expressed in “Mein Kampf”. Women in Nazi Germany after marriage were expected to leave their job, however in 1937 as Germany prepared for war, women were needed to supplement the male workforce. Hitler believes that women were kinder, gentler than men. Slogan for woman in Nazi was: Kinder, Kirche, Kuche (children, church and cooking) .
In Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the 19th century female narrator experiences societal restrictions but does not yet have the confidence within herself to break free and fulfill her ambitions, giving the world all she has to offer. Through the use of the symbols, the wallpaper and the nursery she is confined in, the restrictions on this woman’s ambition are exemplified. Especially in the 19th century before the feminist movement, society restricted many types of people from satisfying their dreams; consequently, these oppressed groups were forced to submit to this dominating force. Gilman writes, “Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard.” describing the sub pattern, a woman, of the wallpaper. While this woman depicted in the wallpaper is in the light, the view of society, she doesn’t move or rebel; equally, when the woman is in the dark, alone, she resents society and the “bars” it places in front of her.
Though she did not deserve such a discriminating job, it was her only option to make a name for herself in the world. Many people tend to consider Bronte's use of Jane Eyre in her novel not to back up the idea men and women having equality, but to have her main character relate to herself. Though this may be true, Bronte cleverly intergrated many feminist ideas within Jane Eyre. Relationships in this novel easily support the idea of feminism, showing how Jane's responses to all her