Theme Of Gender Oppression In The Awakening And The Yellow Wallpaper

Kate Chopin’s the most well-known work The Awakening and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” both initially published in 1899, present astoundingly analogous stories of the role of women in society. Both texts are narrated from the point of view of a female protagonist who breaks away from the restraining conventions of a male-ruled society before eventually emancipating through separation from the thinking world, via suicide in The Awakening and insanity in “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” Some would argue that the narrators are unreliable and the stories are misrepresented simply because

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” relates the tale of a woman slowly driven to insanity because of the wallpaper being “One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (Gilman). This narrative has supported many academic discussions about patriarchy, mental illness, and gender roles in the 19th century. The most common literary criticism about the piece is through a feminist lense, and for good reason, as this piece scales through many female-centric issues. Through this logic, many have been led to believe that the wallpaper itself is a critique against the patriarchy and how it oppressed the narrator. This explanation is sensible historically and narratively, however, I propose that

Throughout Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Edna Pontellier undergoes several episodes of bipolar behavior through her activities and her family life that leads to her suicide. This analysis outlines the externalizations of her radical thoughts as a married women and how they contrast to the contemporary women of this era.

In the book “The Awakening”, by Kate Chopin, Edna Pontellier struggles with her desire to be independent and to meet society’s expectations for women. Edna has difficulty expressing her internal struggles and, as a result, everyone who shares a close relationship with Edna suffers. Leonce, Edna’s husband, lives through a one sided-relationship and is completely unaware of Edna’s desire to be independent. Leonce frequently gives Edna valuable gifts in order to compensate for his emotional absence. However, this does not satisfy Edna’s desire to be independent, so she has an affair. Edna’s treatment of her husband is completely unjustified and weakens

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” tells the story of a woman suffering from post-partum depression, undergoing the sexist psychological treatments of mental health, that took place during the late nineteenth century. The narrator in Gilman’s story writes about being forced to do nothing, and how that she feels that is the worst possible treatment for her. In this particular scene, the narrator writes that she thinks normal work would do her some good, and that writing allows her to vent, and get across her ideas that no one seems to listen to. Gilman’s use of the rhetorical appeal pathos, first-person point of view, and forceful tone convey her message that confinement is not a good cure for mental health, and that writing,

The Awakening was a very exciting and motivating story. It contains some of the key motivational themes that launched the women’s movement. It was incredible to see how women were not only oppressed, but how they had become so accustomed to it, that they were nearly oblivious to the oppression. The one woman, Edna Pontellier, who dared to have her own feelings was looked upon as being mentally ill. The pressure was so great, that in the end, the only way that she felt she could be truly free was to take her own life.  In this paper I am going to concentrate on the characters central in Edna’s life and her relationships with them.

     The short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman gives a brilliant description of the plight of the Victorian woman, and the mental agony that her and many other women were put through as "treatment" for depression when they found that they were not satisfied by the life they had been given.

In Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, the constant boundaries and restrictions placed on Edna Pontellier by society will lead to her struggle for freedom and her ultimate suicide. Her husband Leonce Pontellier, the current women of society, and the Grand Isle make it evident that Edna is trapped in a patriarchal society. Despite these people, Edna has a need to be free and she is able to escape from the society that she despises. The sea, Robert Lebrun, and Mademoiselle Reisz serve as Edna’s outlets from conformity. “Edna's journey for personal independence involves finding the words to express herself. She commits suicide rather than sacrificing her independent,

Madness does not always occur in asylums, it can happen in your own home. In the 1800’s, a doctor named S.Weir Mitchell created a treatment for depression he called the Rest Cure. The Rest Cure required victims of depression - namely women - to remain locked away, typically in their room, until their depression subsided. This prolonged isolation often had the opposite effect, turning the minds of victims of mild depression to the brink of insanity. As a protest to S. Weir Mitchell’s Rest Cure, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ uses different tones to give a vivid illustration of the madness that ensues from Mitchell’s methods and provides a clear view of the oppression towards forward-thinking women in the 1800’s, creating a piece of feminist literature

Edna’s awakening is important because in 1899, women did not have autonomy; their main purpose was domesticity. The church and patriarchy reined over women who were the property of their husbands and considered inferior to men with no sexual desire. Chopin presents Mr. Pontellier as a perfect specimen of late nineteenth century patriarchy. Some women thrive in this culture as Chopin demonstrates through Mrs. Ratignolle. However, for many women, like Edna this world was suffocating. The natural reaction to this oppression is feminism, but Chopin does not preach feminism

The yellow wallpaper is a story about John and his wife who he keeps locked up due to her "nervous condition" of anxiety. John diagnoses her as sick and has his own remedy to cure her. His remedy s to keep her inside and deterring her from almost all activities. She is not allowed to write, make decisions on her own, or interact with the outside world. John claims that her condition is improving but she knows that it is not. She eats almost nothing all day and when it is suppertime she eats a normal meal. John sees this and proclaims her appetite is improving. Later in the story, the woman creates something of an imaginary friend trapped behind the horrible looking yellow wallpaper in

In today world people can attend meeting to discuss all kind of ailments, however, as a conflict and more important for the study of the discourse of mental illness in the novel, Chopin seems to be drawing the connection between the New Woman’s desire for a fuller existence and the medical misinterpretations that followed. Noted, “at the same time that new opportunities for self-cultivation and self-fulfillment in education and work were offered to women, doctors warned them that pursuit of such opportunities would lead to sickness, sterility, and race suicide.

     In the late nineteenth century, after the American social and economic shift commonly referred to as the "Industrial Revolution" had changed the very fabric of American society, increased attention was paid to the psychological disorders that apparently had steamed up out of the new smokestacks and skyscrapers in urban populations (Bauer, 131).  These disorders were presumed to have been born out of the exhaustion and "wear and tear" of industrial society (Bauer, 131-132).  An obvious effect of these new disorders was a slew of physicians and psychiatrists advocating one sort of cure or another, although the "rest cure" popularized by the physician S. Weir Mitchell was the most

Sexists have always considered women as weak, but pre-women’s rights movement this was a general belief. Gilman depicts the marginalization of women, especially those claiming mental illness, in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Through the treatment of the protagonist, the “woman” behind the wallpaper, and the “freedom” of the mentally afflicted, the outlook of the world on the female gender is observed.

In our video, the main themes we focused on was marriage, independence. social boundaries, and the same type of men in different time periods. Our thought process behind the whole thing was how the female protagonists from each novel, Edna Pontellier, Janie Crawford, and Elizabeth Bennet are best friends who are visiting a coffeeshop in modern time. They are catching up on their devastating love lives, however, are rudely interrupted, one by one, by each of their husbands/admirers who are yelling at them to come home and do their womanly duties.