Women in the 19th century -The yellow wallpaper
Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wall-Paper” to reveal the constraints which society forced upon women during the late nineteenth century. This realistic short story portrays a woman’s inability to freely and independently express herself, due to the domestic and social standards women were supposed to uphold at this time. These standards, which the male dominant society stressed to be idealistic of women, were oppressive and cruel. Gilman presents the woman, who is suffering from Post-Pardum Syndrome, as being belittled throughout the story by her domineering husband, the all-knowing physician. “The Yellow Wall-Paper” has a common theme of a child-like reference, which the husband constantly exploits on his wife. He uses it so much that she takes on the characteristics of a child. The imprisoned environment the narrator is forced to live in is also a prevalent theme, symbolizing how the narrator feels trapped inside herself and inside the yellow wallpaper because John implements complete control over her and enforces her not to think or write. The inferior and submissive attitude the narrator possesses is shown in the first few paragraphs of the story. She first introduces
Ironically in the end of the story there is a complete role reversal of the narrator and her husband. The narrator finally becomes what her husband has created, a child with no identity. This enables her to take control of her own situation because now she doesn’t have to follow the social conventions bestowed upon her as a woman. She takes control over the imprisoned room she is in because she is the only one who knows where the key is, and decides that she wants to surprise her husband by showing him how she has finally escaped “in spite of [him] and Jane!” (Page 844) Any key can signify the key to freedom, but in the narrator’s case, the restrictive confinement of her husband was escaped by pulling off all the wallpaper that has been repressing her. She also breaks free from the societal standards by losing her true identity as a wife and mother by blaming ‘Jane’ for keeping her shut in also. Her husband then takes on a feminist characteristic of fainting, at the sight of her crawling around reduced to the state of a child, and she says; “Now why should that man have fainted?” (Page 844) putting her in the superior position as she crawled over him time and again. John constantly demeans his wife, reminding her that the illness is her own fault and the reason they stay in the house is for her sake. He tells the narrator that her case isn’t serious and that he
Some topics in this essay:
Yellow Wall-Paper”,
Jane” Page,
Post-Pardum Syndrome,
Wall-Paper Gilman,
page 833,
yellow wallpaper,
,
“the yellow wall-paper”,
husband narrator,
inside yellow wallpaper,
narrator isn’t,
page 844,
inside yellow,
page 835,
wife takes,
yellow wall-paper”,
“the yellow,
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Approximate Word count = 938
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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