Analysis Of The Yellow Wall-Paper And A Rose For Emily

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American feminist, sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform. She served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. She also wrote many books, short stories, poems, and essays including Why Women Do Not Reform Their Dress. Gilman’s purpose in Why Women Do Not Reform Their Dress is to express her ideas on why women went through so much pain wearing the clothes they did, just to be acknowledged in certain social circles. Gilman explores the different ranges of imagery, detail, and diction to depict the need of women to be approved by society and the torment they put themselves through to do so.

Barbara Angelis stated “Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away” (Angelis, BrainyQuote). This statement reflects the theme of isolation and how one can truly understand themselves through self-reflection and time spent in loneliness. In the short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, both female protagonists, experience a time of seclusion leading to self- realization. Hence, both of these pieces of literature illustrate the troubles of women in a male-dominated society. As a result, both characters experience oppression by overbearing male influences and are physically and emotionally

Women in the eighteenth century were confined by their husbands, and imprisoned in their own homes. Women had no rights to their own lives, or a say so in how to live it. Women at this time struggled for equality, and they were unable to think or live for themselves. If they showed any signs of being unhappy they were condemned by society and their master. In this process many women transcended into severe nervous depression. In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, we observe a woman’s descent into madness, and we can better understand how women of this time suffered with oppression. This story is a glimpse of Gilman’s real life struggle with gender roles, inner conflict,

Kessler emphasizes the point that this one short story seemed parallel and mirror the views of Gilman in regards to the oppression of women in her society. Comparing the two, Kessler writes, “This once she was able to join her public and private expressions in a work of devastating impact” (Kessler 1991 p.159). Gilman, who was a leader and crusader in the women’s rights movement, tried to expel away the gender bias that plague women, just as the narrator in her story tries to pull off the wallpaper in her room to free the trapped women behind it. The patriarchal society at that time period was Gilman’s wallpaper. She had to work hard at trying to force through societal changes. Just like the resistant old wallpaper in her story, ridged and yellow with age, Gilman and her counterparts had much difficulty in pushing through the wallpaper of tradition.

In the short stories “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner and “The Yellow Wallpaper”” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonists experience mental illness, loneliness, feelings of being in control of their lives, and feelings of being insane. Both main characters struggle against male domination and control. The two stories take place in the late 1800’s - early 1900’s, a time where men’s place in society was superior to that of women. Each story was written from a different perspective and life experiences. “A Rose for Emily” was written by a man and told in third personal narration, while “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written by a female and told in first person.

In the story, “A Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator tells her story of her life living with her husband and she comes off as a distressed, morose wife. In “A Rose for Emily” Emily is struggling with keeping a tradition in her family and is also and also distressed. Both women deal with the struggles of their husbands who do not give them attention or treat them well. They both show similarities in their qualities of life. In William Faulkner's, “A Rose for Emily” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” both have female characters who have to endure and overcome struggles of loneliness, isolation, insanity, and depression as the female protagonist.

The structure of the text, particularly evident in the author’s interactions with her husband, reveals the binary opposition between the façade of a middle-class woman living under the societal parameters of the Cult of Domesticity and the underlying suffering and dehumanization intrinsic to marriage and womanhood during the nineteenth century. While readers recognize the story for its troubling description of the way in which the yellow wallpaper morphs into a representation of the narrator’s insanity, the most interesting and telling component of the story lies apart from the wallpaper. “The Yellow Wallpaper” outwardly tells the story of a woman struggling with post-partum depression, but Charlotte Perkins Gilman snakes expressions of the true inequality faced within the daily lives of nineteenth century women throughout the story. Although the climax certainly surrounds the narrator’s overpowering obsession with the yellow wallpaper that covers the room to which her husband banished her for the summer, the moments that do not specifically concern the wallpaper or the narrator’s mania divulge a deeper and more powerful understanding of the torturous meaning of womanhood.

“The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts a young woman’s gradual descent into insanity due to her entrapment, both mentally and physically, in the restrictive cult of domesticity. Through the narrator’s creeping spiral into madness, Gilman seeks to shed light upon the torturous and constraining societal conditions in which women are expected to live, that permeates throughout all aspects of their lives. At first glance to an average reader unfamiliar with Gilman’s history, “The Yellow Wallpaper” seems to just provide a tale about the oppressive relationship between the man and the woman in a domestic environment, however, once Gilman’s own personal life is uncovered, the story takes on a new level of depth.

The women in Faulkner's and Gilman's stories are victims of male over-protectiveness.  The men that rule their lives trap Emily in "A Rose For Emily" and the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper". Each character must retreat into their own world as an escape from reality.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story which explores the themes of misogyny in a time in which they were the norm of society. During Gilman’s lifetime, she published works of non-fiction concerning the topic of economic independence for women and gave lectures which would cement her identity as a social theorist (Biography.com). After giving birth to her daughter, Gilman developed severe depression, for which she was subjected to many odd treatments (Biography.com). This is believed to have inspired the main event of her story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” (Biography.com). Her husband was the one who encouraged these treatments, and Gilman’s interactions with him served to drive the plot of the story, which is shaped by the interactions between the two sexes.

This source constructs work of multiple critics who have argued the trend and verbalized that Gilman’s writings was a very prominent source of the “white civilized womanhood” of her time. Genealogy of morals and the intent of her life long obsession of feminist roles by the “civilized white woman”. Genealogy of herself and why she is called a feminist fore mother. The identification of “Race Suicide”, and the continuing breakdown of two of her books, Herland

The narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) embodies the spirit of first wave feminism. Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the narrator, whose character was modeled off of Gilman, both stressed the importance and need for “physical autonomy and intellectual freedom” (Vertinsky 3) for women of the 19th and 20th centuries. Throughout the short story, the unnamed narrator is constantly questioning and pushing against the male authority. She critiques her prescribed “rest cure”, takes small measures such as writing in her journal to defy John, and independently makes the decision to lock herself in the nursery. Although the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” actively rebels against the questionable medical practices and the social limitations of women of that

The early nineteen hundreds were a very bad time to be alive if you were a woman. The disrespect and expectations of women were unbelievable by today’s standards. However, if these expectations were to drive a woman mad, that woman would be in for an even bigger ride than before. Writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s life was unfortunate enough to receive the short end of the stick. Driven to depression, Gilman was appointed to the rest cure. A cure that she later found out was the exact opposite of what anyone in her situation needed. A cure in which after Gilman was able to survive, was poised to banish it and rid the world of this cure, while at the same time, putting the state of women in society under a microscope. This is how Gilman, using her own experiences, successfully contributed the protest of the rest cure, marriage and the place of women in society of her time period.

Gilman also worked toward social reform, always concerned people, not just women. Yet she was widely known [for her incisive studies of women's role and status in society]. Her works, such as Women and Economics, displayed her take on women's past and present subordination in society. Her main objective was the recognize the slave manship of women through economic dependence inside marriage, unpaid work and undervalue in the home as well as in society. She wanted to transform current economic thinking to show women they had more purpose than just in the home. Her aim was to show women that they had more to offer society than just maintaining the home and rearing children, women were more than their husbands, more than a mother. Gilman’s contribution to the discipline has earned her recognition for time to

America then was a region where patriarchy was the supreme rule, something that could not deemed to be challenged. Treated merely as second rate citizens, confinement was the fate of women. They were to be confined within the four walls of their houses, and had to possess and develop a profound interest and focus on the dynamics of domesticity and patriarchal submission. It is this suffocating ambience that defines Gilman’s narrator’s state in the