Analysis Of `` Mirror `` By Sylvia Plath And `` The Yellow Wallpaper ``

In Khaled Hosseini 's A Thousand Splendid Suns, Henrik Isben 's A Doll 's House, and Kamala Markandaya 's Nectar in a Sieve, women face obstacles that disempower and silence them due to Men 's treatment of women, the societal view of women, and the objectification of women. Within the literary works analyzed this semester, disempowerment is a persisting theme that roots from the various obstacles and hardships women encounter. The woman 's ability to overcome this disempowerment is particularly challenging due to being oppressed by their peers, specifically men. Women countlessly serve as victims of verbal and physical abuse under their husbands, thus contributing to the idea of female inferiority. There are various stereotypical roles challenged between men and women in society leading to discrimination of women. The preconceived notions of women 's roles in society arise from those within society. During this time era, most of society depicts women as uneducated, essentially lacking economical and social opportunities, making the female population highly vulnerable to all types of exploitation. Nonetheless, men in these literary works display objectifying and degrading attitudes towards those of the female gender. The objectification of women notably dehumanizes the female population. Within these literary works, the authors exemplify this reality of obstacles that disempower and silence women. Though these women fight for their liberation and equality, they are victims of

The poem the Mirror is about beauty standards. She talks about how, as a mirror, she shows exactly what she sees and she tells no lies. The narrator states, “I am not cruel, only truthful.” When the narrator becomes a lake, she can also only show truth and reflection of one’s self. The Mirror represents the truth of who we actually are, even if society has portrayed us as or forced us to be someone else.

A feminist lens looks at the relationships between men and women. It specifically focuses on the portrayal of women within the work of literature. It attempts to analyze how women have been affected by men and their actions. It not only works to show how women have been marginalized and suppressed by society, but also how they have been privileged. However, a “feminist lens” mustn't solely focus on femininity. It also examines the role of “masculinity” in the portrayal of men .The “feminist lens” accomplishes all of this in the pursuit of analyzing gender boundaries and norms (Delahoyde 1).

Reading literature, at first, might seem like simple stories. However, in works like William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily,” Katherine Mansfield's “Miss Brill,” and Kate Chopin's “The Storm,” the female protagonists are examples of how society has oppressive expectations of women simply because of their gender.

Doesn’t everyone wish they could grow up faster when they are younger, but when they actually start to grow up, they just want it to slow down? Aging is a unique experience to everyone and each person deals with it differently. This theme of aging and how people see themselves can be seen both similarly and differently in “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath and “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. These similarities and differences can be seen through each author’s tone, each poem’s structure, and each poem’s overall message.

The role of women in works of literature as well as in life has changed significantly. Previously, women were seen as needy and dependent on the men in their lives. Women were only important for raising children and doing work around the house, while men were off

Women have been devalued by men for as long as people can remember. In the past, when men were off at war, women had to work jobs and keep business functioning routinely. Filling in the gaps the men left to go off to combat was no trouble for women, but as soon as the men returned, the women had to return to the kitchen. Women are the inferior option, the substitute if the male species were to be wiped out. Women aren’t acknowledged for all they are, nor are they given the same opportunities as men. In the story, “What if Shakespeare had a sister”, Virginia Woolf discusses how incompetently women were regarded in society. Women were dispossessed of all their rights, being nothing more than a housewife, being restricted of their potential. In, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a narrative of a woman being trapped and living in a patriarchal world. In the sonnet “Quincenanera” Judith Ortiz Cofer, discusses a girl growing into a woman who knows she will be treated miserably by society. As portrayed in all these stories, a theme of women being deprived of their rights. Gilman and Cofer both defend Woolf’s assertions about the contradiction of women’s depiction compared to real life because of the expectations of reproductive work, devaluation, repercussions of women being denied of their true freedom, and sexism.

The first thing one can notice in Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mirror” (rpt. In Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson, Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 9th ed. [Boston: Wadsworth, 2006] 680) is that the speaker in the poem is the mirror and the woman in the poem is Sylvia Plath. As you read through the poem, the lake is relevant because of the famous mythological story of narcissus. He was extremely beautiful and one day while drinking from a lake he saw his reflection. He looked at it for so long and so close that he fell in the river and died. This shows the consequences of vanity. Sylvia Plath uses this metaphor to show that the little girl that used to look in that mirror has now

In this book, women are portrayed with no power since they are not allowed the same luxuries as men, their opinions are disrespected by men, and they are judged based off their appearance or status and not on an intellectual level. Showing as a common theme throughout the book, it is seen

1. Great literature deals more with emotions than with events. Part 2 3.4 Great literature deals more with emotions than with events. In the gothic short story, The Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins, symbolism is used to convey the oppression of women in the nineteenth century in her short story about a nameless woman who is taken by her husband, John to a country house so she can be treated for her postpartum-depression and her struggle to get better. The events that take place are not as important in conveying the ideas of oppression and entrapment as the emotions conveyed in the journal of the protagonist.

Feminism in literature has been a major turning point in feminism in the U.S. In Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-paper", and Glaspell's "Trifles", the author is writing about the roles that females played in day to day life. They both accurately display the ways that females were treated by men.

In many literary examples women are in pushed to change themselves in order to be the person society expects them to be. This change was the result of constant ridicule revolving around the idea that men, in fact, are superior to women in many ways. Overtime these judgements against women have become less of an issue, however are still relevant. Women are as capable as men of being independent and valuable, but because they are subjected they still fall vulnerable to oppression by society which changes their view of themselves so they act in different ways in order to please society.

Reflecting upon their role in society, women in literature are often portrayed in a position

mirror. Who are almost getting in the way so to speak of its life and

For centuries man has created this patriarchal society in which women have been treated as the lesser entity, having no sense of self-being or worth. These feelings led women to feel repressed in their everyday life. It was in the late nineteenth century when literary writers started to expose this female repression. Guy de Maupassant and Kate Chopin clearly express definitive examples of female repression in their stories, The Necklace and The Story of an Hour.