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The Yellow Wallpaper Gender

Decent Essays

The short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a perfect example of a story that needs to be re-analyzed from a feminist perspective. “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written in 1892 which was during the time period that feminists initially emerged and began fighting for women’s rights. This was also the time that women began trying to show their equality to men and proving that women could be just as useful outside the home as within. However, in literature, women were still being portrayed as weak, feeble-minded, and incapable of doing anything except for chores. Due to this information, “The Yellow Wallpaper” needs to be re-evaluated because of its set gender roles, its put-downs of women, and its blatant disregard …show more content…

For example, when the narrator’s husband refers to her as all of these pet names such as: “darling”, “blessed little goose”, and even “little girl”, it is demeaning and can be construed as a put-down. These words, especially “little girl”, represent how women were thought of during this time; as feeble, little things that can’t fend for themselves. Although the woman in the story is mentally unsteady, she should not be spoken to or referred to as a little girl because she is an adult. A woman could never have referred to an adult man as “little boy” because that is disrespectful. If it’s considered disrespectful to men, then it should be considered disrespectful to women as well, otherwise, it is discriminatory. Using condescending words and phrases, such as “little girl”, to describe or speak to women should be recalled in all literature to ensure that women are not portrayed as weak or inferior to …show more content…

She is the only one who could possibly know how well she feels so even when she tells her husband that she knows that she is sick, he brushes her off. For example when her husband said, “You know the place is doing you good,’ he said, ‘and really, dear, I don’t care to renovate the house just for a three-months’ rental”, he was responding to his wife who had been asking him to fix up the wallpaper because it was making her uncomfortable. His wife is mentally unsteady so he should have been keeping an eye on her so that she wouldn’t do anything rash, but of course he believes that the house is helping her so he is missing the signs. If her husband had just taken care of her and listened to how she felt, the end of the story wouldn’t have ended quite so badly for him. He refused to believe that his wife knew better than him because he is superior since he is not only male, he is also a doctor. So why would he have any reason to believe her? Apparently, the narrator’s husband knows her body better than she. If women were shown as strong, independent thinkers then there wouldn’t be a problem, but women in literature are still shown as not having a brain in their head or a care in the world. Due to the acceptance of the portrayal of women in older books, many authors continued to describe women as weak making this a recurring

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