The way women are treated in The Yellow Wallpaper and Jamaica Inn are very different. In the Yellow Wallpaper, John is acting on what he thinks is right for her wife, but in Jamaica Inn, Aunt Patience is intimidated by Joss Merlyn and is unable to express her feelings and opinions as she is too scared to speak up. We begin to see the way Aunt Patience acts when Joss is around when they are sat having their tea at the table, "Her aunt, who had not uttered since her husband entered the room.... In a minute she had dropped it, uttering a little cry of distress" (page 21). Aunt Patience becomes anxious and nervous when in the presence of her husband. We see how she is treated by Joss when he says, "One fool is bad enough without making a couple of them" (page 21). This shows us the Joss has no respect for his wife and begins to treat her like a child and by calling her a "fool" it appears to have insulted her. The use of the noun “fool” implies that Joss sees her as being quite senseless and doesn’t seem to see her on the same level as him which further emphasizes the difference in men and women in the 1900s. The use of the noun “child” further implies the difference in respect as a child is quite timid whereas Joss is more powerful and gives the idea of him overpowering this child.
In comparison to this, the way John treats the narrator and the way Joss treats Patience is very similar. The narrator begins to feel entrapped in these four walls and begins to think about how
The two texts I am going to analyse are The Yellow Wallpaper and The Picture of Dorian Gray. I am going to compare and contrast the theme of madness and mystery around the main characters. Both texts were published in the era of 1890. During 29, 1890: the artist Vincent Van Gogh died in France at the age of 37 after shooting himself two days earlier. This may have inspired The Picture Of Dorian Gray as Basil is an artist who also dies as a result.
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
One similarity between the two works is the that we are limited on where we get our information. Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” we see everything through the eyes of the narrator. The entire story is told from her secret diary when she has the time to write as shown in the line, “I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal-having to be so sly about it” (Gilman 527). Due to this, we can only make assumptions based on the information we get from her. She tells us she is in “A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate” (Gilman 526) and that she stays in “a big, airy room…It was a nursery first and then a playroom and gymnasium” (Gilman 527). However, once we reach the end of the story, with the
The geographical, physical, and historical settings in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" were more than the primary character could handle. The geography would lead to think she could enjoy the environment, but she chose not to. The physical setting showed us the reader just how grotesque and unbearable it would be to live a room in which the wallpaper to over the narrators mind. Lastly, we looked at how historically women were not allowed to speak their minds about how they felt. Maybe now that John has seen his wife go completely insane for himself he will finally seek extra attention for
While reading the Doll's house Henrik Ibsen by poem it had a strikingly similar theme to "the Yellow wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was quite shocking that Doll's house was written by a man since the story seems to be told from the wife's point of view how she feels about how her husband value treats her. Both poems is about women rights but during this time period women's didn't have rights and was subject to their husband
In the disturbing novel, The Yellow Wallpaper, the setting in which the action takes place is extremely important. The author uses setting to focus the reader’s attention into the story in a gradual manner. Also, the manipulation of setting allows the author to subtly introduce symbols in the text. These symbols represent Gilman’s view on the status of women in the patriarchal society of the nineteenth century.
Analysis: The above quotations clearly display the similarity between John and the Narrator’s relationship to that of a father and a daughter. John controls the majority of the Narrator’s behavior to the point she feels an overwhelming sense of guilt for her incapacity as John’s wife. The Narrator is restricted in her actions and is therefore unable to fulfil her wifely duties, forcing her to consider herself as a burden. When is reality, John treats the Narrator as his daughter and does not permit her to complete her duty. For instance, the Narrator dislikes the yellow wallpaper and wishes to have it removed; however, John does not allow her to do so and acts as if it would feed into a child’s stubbornness. His continued belief in his superiority disregards the Narrator as is wife and instead infantilizes her. He believes her identity exists only through him, which merely encourages his paternalistic
Throughout the madness displayed in “The Yellow wallpaper” and the disappearance of Nora at the end of “A doll’s house”, we could see both women are confined and controlled by their marriages, Nora from Henrik Ibsen's play “A Doll's House” and the narrator from Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" portray the negative treatment of women throughout society during the 19th century. These women long for the activity and stimulation, which they have been deprived of as the product of a society that puts women in the lowest division, and they resolve to triumph over their husbands and free their souls. Therefore, seeing these vast similarities’ in these stories when it comes to the husbands John from “The Yellow
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Sinclair Ross’s “The Painted Door” are both stories about women protagonists who feel emotionally isolated from their husbands, who both go by the name John. Ann in “The Painted the Door” and the wife whose name may or may not be Jane in “The Yellow Wallpaper” are women who deal with emotional isolation. Emotional isolation is a state of isolation where one may be in a relationship but still feel emotional separation. In these two stories, both women feel emotionally isolated from their husbands due to lack of communication. In both stories, lack of communication results from one individual failing to disclose their true feelings and instead he or she are beating around the bush, hoping the other party will know what they want. If both parties directly disclose their desires and feelings to one another, there would be a better understanding of each other which as a result would help save marriages. This paper will look at how both women lack communication, how they both their approach their emotional isolation differently, and how their failure to communicate to their husbands and their approach, results in the failure to save their marriage. “The Painted Door” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” are stories that show how both women protagonists are emotionally isolated due to their failure to communicate their feelings and desires to their husbands. Instead of direct communication to their husbands, the women find other
In To Room 19 by Doris Lessing and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonists, Susan Rawlings and The Yellow Wallpaper’s narrator become increasingly isolated. What are the causes of this isolation? How did Susan and the narrator cope with their crisis, and what is the ultimate outcome of their isolation?
The narrator is portraying a woman who is looked down upon because of her mental illness, but women at the time were often seen as childish or too emotional. “Then he took me in his arms called me a blessed little goose,” (Gilman 5). The narrator’s husband, John, treats her almost like a father would treat a daughter. The narrator is belittled because of her inability to act like women at the time were expected to. “Victorian values stressed that women were to behave demurely and remain with in the domestic sphere,” (Wilson 6). During the 19th century, women were expected to simply care for the children and clean the house. Most of the time, women who aspired to do more than that were not considered respectable wives. “Because the narrator is completely dependent on her husband and is allowed no other role than to be a wife and a mother, she represents the secondary status of women during the 19th century,” (Wilson 5).
“The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the story of the narrator’s personal battle with after-birth depression and the disastrous rest cure treatment she received. Living during the restrictive Victorian period, the narrator experienced firsthand the frustrating limitations placed on women in her era, many of whom were victimized by society’s complete misunderstanding of postpartum depression and other psychological infirmities. On the other hand, “No Name Woman” tells the story of Maxine Hong Kingston’s recall of the events of her aunt's life in the vague world of her Chinese roots. The story is of her aunt who was persecuted for having an illegitimate child as a result of an affair
My perspective of Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wall-Paper" is influenced by a great number of different and diverse methods of reading. However, one cannot overlook the feminist theorists’ on this story, for the story is often proclaimed to be a founding work of feminism. Further, the historical and biographical contexts the story was written in can be enlightened by mentioning Gilman’s relationship with S. Weir Mitchell. And I can’t help but read the story and think of Foucault’s concept of Panopticism as a method of social control. Lastly, of course, there’s the psychological perspective on the story, although in my readings of psychology, particularly the psychological knowledge surrounding both women and queers, I find the
"The Yellow Wallpaper" is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1890 and eventually published in 1892 in the New England Magazine and in William Dean Howells' collection, Great Modern American Stories (Shumaker 94). The story was original not only because of its subject matter, but also because it is written in the form of a loosely connected journal. It follows the narrator's private thoughts which become increasingly more confusing. The structure consists of disjointed sentences as the narrator gradually descends more and more into her madness as her only escape from an oppressive husband and society.
A perfect example of this marital power-structure is her confinement in a nursery surrounded by “barred windows” because of her “nervous condition” (25). Jane believes that her husband is supposed to exploit the repressive gender roles granted to him by the establishment. She doesn’t question his dominance because she is accustomed to living in fear of her husband, a commonality among twentieth century wives. John intimidates her, and the narrator reveals that she was, “getting a little afraid of John” (35). Even though Jane submits to some of John’s demands, she disobeys his rule that she is not allowed to write. By composing messages in her diary, she responds to John’s patronizing nature and subtly discloses her interpretations of marriage. In the beginning of Gilman’s piece, the narrator writes, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage” (24). The diction in this quotation is incredibly revealing and demonstrates Jane’s attitude regarding the implications of marriage. Instead of writing “I,” she says “one,” in order to emphasize the fact that, without exception, every married woman must endure the cruelties of their husbands, not just herself. Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman comments on women’s inferior status within society. Through Gilman’s inclusion of Jane’s perspectives of