Essay on Oppression in The Yellow Wallpaper, At the Cadian Ball, and The Storm

Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses her short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” to show how women undergo oppression by gender roles. Gilman does so by taking the reader through the terrors of one woman’s changes in mental state. The narrator in this story becomes so oppressed by her husband that she actually goes insane. The act of oppression is very obvious within the story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and shows how it changes one’s life forever.

Not only does the yellow wallpaper represent how the narrator feels physically trapped by the room but also how she feels oppressed by society. Through out her

Unfortunately the discomfort for the narrator and myself did not stop here. The narrator’s obsession with the yellow wallpaper lead her to analyze and really observe the aspects of the wallpaper. She states “I never saw a worse paper in my life” (book pg 153). She goes into a further description saying the wallpaper is dull, constantly irritate, and provokes study (book pg 153). The color yellow is an important element because after all it is the color of the wallpaper. When I think of yellow I think a radiant warm sun, also as a joyful happy

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.

While women have achieved equality along with political and social independence in many ways over the past century, contemporary feminist movements continue to blossom as gender expectations and stereotypes remain deeply embedded in our culture. Today and in the past, feminist notions about the social norms that limit women's possibilities have yearned for expression and have found this through various artistic outlets. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Story of An Hour by Kate Chopin, and the 1944 Film Gaslight are three artistic works that relay feminist themes in a unique way. These three works differ in certain aspects, but all ultimately embody the same underlying theme of the oppression and liberation.

It is in this context of American fin-de-siècle that Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote their stories. The Awakening and The Yellow Wallpaper both portray heroines suffering from restrictive conventions that society has placed on them. One the one hand, there is Edna Pontellier, a repressed woman who abandons herself to her desires and ambitions, on the other hand, there is Gilman’s unnamed narrator, the wife of a doctor whom infantilises her and disregards her opinions.

In these two stories, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman and The Storm by Kate Chopin we can distinctly see one certain theme; the oppression of women and their desires to have their personal freedom. Both stories were written when independence was not applied to women. Their role in society was merely a wife and mother who had no right to stand on her own or speak as she pleases.

Topics of great social impact have been dealt with in many different ways and in many different mediums. Beginning with the first women’s movement in the 1850’s, the role of women in society has been constantly written about, protested, and debated. Two women writers who have had the most impact in the on-going women’s movement are Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Awakening and The Yellow Wallpaper are two of feminist literature’s cornerstones and have become prolific parts of American literature. Themes of entrapment by social dictates, circumstance, and the desire for personal independence reside within each work and bond the two together.

In the early nineteen century, women were not explicitly part of literature. they were used male pseudonym to publish their works. However, later in the century, there was a shift in women’s implication in literature. women began to be publicly recognized as writers, and they were using their writings to advocate for women’s rights and to reject stereotypes that were commonly associated with them. For example, in the early nineteen century, books and novels were mostly describing “piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity” as attributes of a good woman (Fortin). Writings by women were describing women that where rejecting values of the patriarchal society; women that wanted freedom and independence. The writings of Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman exemplify the features of the Feminist phase of female literary tradition. Published respectively in 1892 and 1895, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin are the quintessence of feminist literature. They both used characterization, setting, ad irony to protest a misogynistic society and to request women’s rights and autonomy.

In society, women were looked upon to be under the patriarchal control of men. People such as Donald Hall, writer of the book on Literary and Cultural Theory, explains his views on how “women have been denied social power and the right to various forms of self-expression (Hall 202).” Writers such as Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, (authors of the “Awakening”/”The Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow-Wallpaper” respectively), have taken these patriarchal views and have incorporated them into various stories that portray the oppression that women face in these communities. Ultimately, their sole purpose of expressing such matters are to help identify how the patriarchal control of men evidently impacts how women can express themselves as individuals.

Gilman also challenges notions of “sociological superiority” (10) and civilization. At the beginning of the novel, Jennings glibly comments, “Why this is a civilized country! ... there must be men.” (44) In Herland, without the markers of love, combat, and danger, the male protagonists expresses the sense of being hopelessly in the wrong and out of place. Jennings

Gilman wrote to describe the reality that women were being denied opportunities that were laid at men’s feet. She hoped that through this piece of literature, efforts to change the dominance of males in society would follow, and that the obvious

Since the 19th century to the present day, feminism has evolved over periods of time, shaped and molded our structure of society into what it is today. Feminism, the exploration and critique of male power that challenges traditional sex roles has always played a major role and been expressed in classic and modern literacy. From press articles, to film productions. From plays to books. Along with this, feminist literary and cultural theories were born from feminists who also challenge and analyze the expressions and resistance between women’s roles and views and patriarchal, or the dominant power given to men over women, oppression. One way that such feminists observe and analyze this resistance is through the feminist analysis, a text that draws on and influences the various applications of women’s roles in society such as gender and class, sexuality, race/ethnicity, psychology, literary form, etc. But how can one text appeal to and demonstrate every possible perspective in feminism? The feminist analysis isn’t alone. Over time, various authors and feminists publishing well-known literary texts demonstrate a theme and challenge feminism that tests society’s structure. Authors such as Kate Chopin and her novel “The Awakening” include the everyday roles of women in a common household during the 19th century, with Chopin knowing to have been living in this time in America. Smaller texts such as “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a short story by Charlotte Gilman, are enough to demonstrate

Imagine a time where women were not allowed to have any form of self-expression. A time where husbands controlled the actions and emotions of their wives and women were seen as more of an accessory to their husbands than as their counterpart. These things were all common for women to experience back in the day; however, it was seen as taboo to discuss these issues. In both “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the main characters are women who are being oppressed by their husbands, whether that be directly or indirectly. The theme of both of these stories revolves around women’s freedom of expression and women’s empowerment. These stories are unique in the sense that they had the audacity to write about such forbidden topics of discussion, and that they shed light and new insights into the dilemma. Both of these stories were revolutionary for their time periods and are historical pieces of fiction that helped spark a feminist movement.

Being imprisoned on the basis of an absurd cure imposed on by the narrator’s husband and his beliefs for what he think is the best for his wife, Gilman brings to the reader’s attention the brutal realities faced by the women in the fight for their freedom due to the society and male dominance. She reflects the time period of the 19th century where women were not given any kind will power over her own thoughts and action. This topic is highlighted in the story when the narrator couldn’t communicate and make her husband understand that her needs and wants are important enough to be considered into account if he wishes for her well-being. This symbolizes the extent to which the women voices was heard. Even though she knew the ‘rest therapy’ wasn’t working for her, she could bring herself up to