There are many similarities and differences between the two husbands in the stories, The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. A few of these include how the treat their wives, their views on marriage, and their intentions. Both do care for their wives, whether they express it clearly or not. What seems to hold them back in both stories, respectively, is their ignorance. The similarities between the two husbands seem to outweigh the differences. The main one is that neither wife is particularly pleased with their husband and in each story the husband is made out to be the bad guy. This is because of the husbands’ inability to understand the wants and deeper needs of their wives. Henry praises his wife as if she is a child that just accomplished something worthwhile, which in a sense belittles that she can do more with her life than …show more content…
John also treats and talks to his wife like a child by calling her a blessed little goose. Both husbands seem to believe that they have authority over their wives in the marriage. Henry believes so in a traditional and patriarchal sense by thinking men are superior to women; while John believes he is superior because he is not only the husband, but doubles as the doctor that is treating her illness. In both cases, the husbands do not treat their wives as their equals. Both husbands, whether knowingly or not, treat their wives poorly. John belittles his wife’s knowledge of the illness she has and really seems to disregard her opinion of it, even when it comes to the small, minute things that she suggests. Both husbands do care for their wives, they are just unable to understand them because of their view of them as
At first, John from “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Leroy Moffitt from “Shiloh” seem completely different from each other. John is a physician who only believes in what he can physically see, while Leroy is a man lost in his own life, looking for a purpose. John’s wife is very dependent on him, whereas Leroy’s wife Norma Jean has her own life. However, the two seem more alike than first appears. If we compare John and Leroy, we can see both stories demonstrate how husbands can drive their wives away by being too restrictive of them.
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
Talents and dreams, hopes and desires, shunned by the husbands and times of the women in ìThe Crysanthemumsî and ìThe Yellow Wallpaper.î The wife, Elisa, in ìThe Crysanthemumsî, reflects an internal struggle with herself to find her place in a world of definite gender roles. ìThe Yellow Wallpaperî traces the treatment of a woman who descends from depression to madness in the male-imposed psychiatric confinement of her room. The mirror-like situations that hinder the protagonists in both stories call the women to conduct themselves in demeanors drastically different from one another.
9. The major conflicts of the protagonists of The Moths and The Yellow Wallpaper are very similar despite being from two different backgrounds. In both stories, an aspect in their lives is haunting the protagonists and they cannot separate themselves from it. In the Moths, the main character hates her large hands that she refers to them as being mannish.
Many of the passages concerning the husband can be interpreted as containing sarcasm, a great many contain irony, and several border on parody (Johnson 528). It is true that the husband’s language is exaggerated at times, but dismissing the husband’s character as caricature seems extreme. He is instead the natural complement to the narrator’s madness and uncontrolled fancy: the character of John is control and “sanity” as defined by Victorian culture and is therefore the narrator’s opposite. Greg Johnson notes that John exhibits a near-obsession with “reason,” even as his wife grows mad. He is the narrator’s necessary counterpart, without whose stifling influence her eventual freedom would not be gained. And he is also transformed at the end of the tale—in a reversal of traditional gothic roles—because it is he, not a female, who faints when confronted with madness (529).
John, the narrator’s controlling, but loving, husband represents the atypical man of the time. He wants his wife to get better and to be able to fill the role of the perfect wife that society expected from her. John, being a doctor, did not quite believe that her mental illness was out of her control and insisted on
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.
An example of the way John treated his wife is, “And after John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head.” (Gilman, )
She has been trained to trust in her husband blindly and sees no other way. He calls her “little girl” (352) and “little goose” (349) and states “She will be as sick as she pleases!” (352) whenever she tries to express her issues. Instead of fighting for what she thinks will make her better she accepts it and keeps pushing her feelings aside, while he treats her like a child. We get an instant feel for her problem in the first page when she says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that” (pg 346). A woman shouldn’t expect her husband to laugh at her concerns. Even after briefly writing about her condition she remembers her husband telling her the very worst thing she can do is think about it and follows his instructions. This is when she begins to focus on the house instead of her problems and the obsession with the wallpaper starts. She has nothing else to think about alone in the home; they don’t even allow her to write, which she has to do in secret.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the husband makes her use a rest cure to make her conform back to her role in society. He doesn’t allow her to do anything except sit in her room away from everyone and everything. The husband in “The Story of an Hour” doesn’t do anything specific other than creating a sense of holding his wife back, because he follows the rules of society and believes she should do the same. The husbands in each story don’t see anything wrong with the way society works and they continue to follow what they believe is the right thing to do. The husbands don’t pay attention to what their wives want or need.
A glance at a few of the conversations between John and the narrator will help clarify the roles of husband and wife as the story represents them. Rather than see the husband and wife as equals, the story clearly places the wife in the role of inferior. Nowhere is this made more explicit than in the use of condescending names when referring to his wife. Early on, when the narrator complains of the unsettling décor in her room, John "called [her] a blessed little goose" (Gilman 2); later, when she cannot sleep, he calls her a "little girl" (Gilman 5). When the narrator protests that she is not improving under her treatment, John patronizingly states: "'Bless her little heart!' said he with a big hug, 'she shall be as sick as she pleases!'" (Gilman 5). Such language use suggests that the narrator is akin to a child, rather than an adult partner of the speaker. Even the narrator herself, within the confines of her own writing, notes that one of her biggest disappointments is that she is unable to fulfill the obligations that come with marriage and motherhood: "It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way! I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!" (Gilman 2).
Their differences created the conflicts between them. John, as a physician, is very practical and rationalistic. He disregards the existence of anything that cannot be seen or felt and therefore does not believe that his wife was ill even though through reading her thoughts and emotions it was clear that she was suffering severely. The woman on the other hand, is very imaginative and sensitive. John believes that all his wife needs is rest and therefore her treatment is that she does no work and especially no writing. He felt that her condition would be made worst if she does any form of work or writing. The woman strongly disagrees with John on the type of treatment that he has suggested. She thinks that having daily activities, freedom, and interesting work would help her condition and so she starts to create secret journal in an attempt to alleviate her mind and to prevent her illness from getting the best of her. John continuously suppresses her thoughts, feelings and concerns about her illness which portrays him in a sense as a “villain”. He does not provide her with the space or opportunity to try other alternatives other than the “rest cure” so that she might overcome her illness. The woman wants to write about her feelings and her conditions but she is not allowed and so she has to struggle to hide her writings from John and his sister. The fact that she cannot freely write and openly express her feelings to John strains her and drains
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 all three of the works, there are several different similarities. These similarities include the main characters are all women and the women are dissatisfied with their marriage. Meanwhile, there are also differences in the development of the characterization. Characterization can be expressed in several different ways which include who is in the story, who is the speaker of the story, and etc. For example, in the play “Trifles,” the characterization was developed from the conversations of Mrs. Hales and Mrs. Peters. In the quote, “Wright was close. I think maybe that's why she kept so much to herself. She didn't even belong to the Ladies' Aid. I suppose she felt she couldn't do her part, and then you don't enjoy things when you feel shabby. I heard she used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie
The narrator’s husband, John, represents the attitude of the androcentric society towards women. In the text, the narrator says “But what is one to do?” (Gilman, 648) for several times to show her discontent and helplessness when her husband and brother enforced her to cooperate the treatment. She describes John as a “careful and loving” (648) gentle and cautious man. It seems like he does care about his wife. However, those “virtues” are actually based on the dominance of male powers and the ideas of traditional society. During the treatment, He “hardly lets his wife stir without special direction”, “cautioned her not to give way to fancy in the least”, asked her “absolutely forbidden to work until she is well again”, and even made her “a