The Role Of Oppression Of Women In The Yellow Wallpaper

     Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is as a wonderful example of the gothic horror genre. It was not until the rediscovery of the story in the early 1970’s that “The Yellow Wallpaper” was recognized as a feminist indictment of a male dominated society. The story contains many typical gothic trappings, but beneath the conventional façade hides a tale of repression and freedom told in intricate symbolism as seen through the eyes of a mad narrator.

The first example of suppression is the usage of the “rest cure” as a treatment for mental illness, which the author indirectly criticizes by showing the negative impact this treatment has on the narrator of the story. Instead of finding ways to work through her depression, she wasn’t allowed to do any kind of work or leave the house area, which caused her to get lost in her own mind. By not being allowed to work or write, she wasn’t able to deal with her problems. She spent most of the time alone in a room, with just her thoughts. Therefore, it is not surprising that she developed a fascination with the pattern of the yellow wallpaper. Although the rest cure treatment obviously did more harm than good it was widely used in the 19th century to treat nervous illnesses. According to the sciencemuseum.org.uk, patients usually were prescribed the rest cure for six to eight week and it meant that were on a bed

----------------Another symbol in The Yellow Wallpaper is marriage. Marriage, in the eyes of the narrator represent a kind of imprisonment and suffocation by men. Because of her marriage, the narrator is held captive in the bonds of marriage and is unable to control her own mental stability. Her husband is often portrayed as a domineering man who treats the narrator as a child. He refers to his wife by; “a blessed little goose” and “Bless her little heart”. And at one point in the story he even says; “What is it little girl.” Though John is carful and loving, he is also domineering and condescending. In the marriage he, the husband, is the provider and caregiver and therefor will not allow the narrator to work.

The woman in The Yellow Wallpaper speaks of a luscious garden that she can see from her window. Although she can never physically visit the garden, she becomes fascinated with it and mentions it frequently throughout the story. The garden becomes one of the only things that brings her joy, and her only real connection to sanity and the outside world. She describes her view from her window by saying: “There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden - large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them” (Gilman 2).

In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Gilman writes about a woman who suffers from temporary nervous depression as diagnosed by her overbearing husband who becomes her doctor. The husband, John, is condescending towards his wife when she questions his diagnosis. Therefore, to get away from the confinement of not being able to speak for herself, the woman secretly writes in her journal as a sense of relief. The woman then becomes fascinated and engrossed with the yellow wallpaper that hangs in her bedroom as a result of her isolation. She comes to the realization that a woman was trapped inside the wallpaper, so she must tear it down to set the woman free. The act of tearing down the wallpaper alludes to the fact that the narrator feels she

The heroine’s attitude towards the yellow wallpaper has changed over the story. She hated it at first, then noticed that the wallpaper could move, and she thought a woman was trapped behind the wallpaper. The way how the heroine thought about her family and the society has also changed at the same time. Instead of being controlled and destroyed under gender discrimination and male chauvinism, the heroine chose to break through all restraints from the society and fight for her freedom at the end. She “didn’t like it a bit (Gilman, P77)” so she tore all the wallpaper, liberated the woman behind it. She crept out of the room before she getting a breakdown and she told her husband and Jenni that they could not put her back anymore. John’s faint symbolized the collapse of the patriarchal society under the rule of

In the past equality between genders wasn’t a thing. Women weren’t allowed to express themselves, and if they were caught expressing themselves it was considered unhealthy. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator, Jane goes through what is called a rest cure, where she is confined from society in order to get better, her husband suggests this after Jane continuously has uncontrollable thoughts and imagination. Feminist oppression is thoroughly evident throughout the story, which contributes to the outcome of the story.

Women in the nineteenth century were delimited and repressed by men. “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Gilman shows the oppression through the protagonist, whom you never learn the name, and the affect it has. The author uses a set of complex symbols such as the house, the window, the husband, and the wallpaper, which are compiled through personal experience. Born in Hartford Connecticut Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an eminent lecturer for social reform, novelist, and American feminist.

The Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman captivates the audience into the psyche of a young mother and wife through journal entries. The wife has been confined to her room for a cure to her depression. As the women remains in the room, she becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper that borders the room. She experiences hallucinations that come because of the wallpaper. Gilman’s story shows the struggle of women’s independence and individuality towards the rise of feminism and an indication towards her own life and experiences through the point of view of the wife in the story.

The way how a patriarchal society sees women is, one of the biggest ideas that are being expressed in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s narration criticizes the social structure that she lives in, gender roles, the rest cure and how women were considered inferior to men, during the 19th-century, with a feminist approach. The author uses symbolism throughout the story to show the social differences between a married male and a female. It is evident that the narrator mostly does not agree with John, but in the end has no choice but to tell him that she agrees.

symbolic significance of the Wallpaper in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” The wallpaper in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” holds many significant symbolic meanings. The narrator’s interpretation and feelings towards the wallpaper changes and develops overtime. These developments are significant in understanding the thought process of the narrator, and the symbolism of the wallpaper.

The text shows the power that men have in the current society. Jane’s husband labels things as reasonable and rational which make things more justifiable in his opinion. The reason her husband forbids Jane from writing was because he saw it as irrational. During Jane’s confinement, she was not haunted by ‘alien powers’ but by her oppressed self. The wallpaper demonstrates the idea of the social constraints placed on women. Rather than the tearing down of the wallpaper down representing Jane was freeing herself from her husband’s oppression, when Jane tore down the wallpaper she was removing her rebellious self, which was not allowing her to achieve her ideal persona. Throughout the story Jane’s husband portrays and treats Jane like a child; by making their bedroom the nursery, forcing Jane to sleep after every meal, and carrying her to bed. It is because of this treatment that Jane projected herself into the wallpaper as a crawling childlike woman. When the woman gets out of the wallpaper a social ideal victory can be seen; Jane retreated to childlike tendencies and her husband was silenced. Jane gained her desired power by escaping into her insanity to silence her husband. Which explains the main themes of the story which are social structures dominated by repressive males and female aggression and

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” the husband, John, is conventional for the time. During the 19th-century, men were at the top of the patriarchal order, this meant that his wife, Jane, had no say in what he did for her or to her. Being that John thought nothing was wrong with Jane and he was a well-known physician, he took her to a house for the summer so that she may get some rest.Jane due to circumstances had no say in the matter. John at times was controlling, but at the same time, he loved his wife. Most of his actions were typical of men in this time period and really say a lot about how men treated their wives back then and how they always imagined that they were the divine leaders of the household. Men in this

The constant battle that both girls are facing in the story is escaping the expectations set by society. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is forced to stay in her room because her husband says and no one will listen to her because she is a woman. “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus- but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad” (Gilman, 526). The wallpaper in her room is like a prison to her, which is a symbol for her life because she is caged in her own mind with her husband doing everything and commanding her like a dog.

One feminist theory is that whenever woman hold power in society they are treated as the “other”. Women have always been seen as domestic or the care takers of the family; women stay home with the kids, tend to dinner and the cleaning. That being said whenever a woman, like Jane, tries to step out of the nurturing role, men tend to feel intimidated and was unsure how to react to such a thing happening (like when John and Jane’s brother diagnose her to be mentally ill all because she desires to write). In the time of the story, Jane is seen as “mentally ill” because she desires to read and write while her husband who happens to be a physician “of high standing” says she tends to have “slightly hysterical tendency” (Page 1, paragraph 5). In “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman uses the yellow wallpaper to symbolize Jane, who represents the way women use to be treated as the “lesser” in society.