Women and 19-Century Domesticity in 'The Yellow Wallpaper'

During the early 1800's women were stuck in the Cult of Domesticity. Women had been issued roles as the moral keepers for societies as well as the nonworking house-wives for families. Also, women were considered unequal to their male companions legally and socially. However, women’s efforts during the 1800’s were effective in challenging traditional intellectual, social, economical, and political attitudes about a women’s place in society.

Days turn into weeks, and after still being exposed to this particular yellow wallpaper, she stars having more severe hallucinations. Every time she looks at the wallpaper, she sees a woman inside it, shaking and moving the walls as if she is trying to escape away from it. Gilman uses the image of this trapped woman inside the wallpaper as a way to express the incarceration of women at her time. By looking at the story from this point of view and analyzing the woman trying to leave the wallpaper, Gilman expresses the revolutionary movement that was going on at the time, using the narrator as a symbol of the whole female society. One critic describes “And in identifying with and freeing both the woman and that part of herself trapped by her patriarchal world, the narrator finds a measure of freedom” (Golden 53). This passage represents Gilman’s society and the struggle that women had go through in order to escape a world dominated by a male society.

For the most part, society’s conception of women in the 19th century dictated the way women were treated and influenced the portrayal of female characters in writing generated during that time. The Cult of Domesticity claimed that true womanhood was marked by a natural inclination to domesticity and submissiveness. Though all women clearly have the capacity to think for themselves, earn money, and overcome the emotional obstacles they may meet, the plausibility of complete independence was a challenging appeal for Harper to make. Men dominated family

Women were confronted by many social obligation in the late nineteenth century. Women were living lives that reflected their social rank. They were expected to be economically dependent and legally inferior. No

Thesis: A “true women” in the 19th Century was one who was domestic, religious, and chaste. These were virtues established by men but enforced and taught by other women. Women were also told that they were inferior to men and they should accept it and be grateful that someone just loved them.

      In the late nineteenth century when the Yellow Wallpaper was written, the role of wife and mother, which women were expected to adopt, often led to depression or a so-called "hysteria".  Women of this period were living in a patriarchal society where they were expected to be demure and passive, supportive yet unquestioning of their husbands, and

Throughout history, a woman’s role was clearly defined to be a mother and dutiful wife to her husband. There was a time where women were considered to be less intelligent than men simply because they were women. However, this changed during the nineteenth century. Although women were still considered to be defined as mothers, they also sought out work as workers in factories and became more than just mothers and wives.

For the longest time, women’s role in society was very narrow and set in stone. Women weren’t given the chance to decide life for their own, and there was a very sharp distinction of gender roles. Women were viewed as inferior, weak, and dependant. They were expected to be responsible for the family and maintainance of the house. But as the 19th century began, so did a drastic change in society. Women started voicing their opinions and seeking change. Trying to break away from this ideology called “cult of domesticity” was a lengthy, burdensome, and demanding struggle.

Women in the nineteenth century lived in a time characterized by gender inequality. At the beginning of the century, women could not vote, could not be sued, were extremely limited over personal property after marriage, and were expected to remain obedient to their husbands and fathers.( women’s suffrage movement 1) In most situations, the men would have to go to work and bring home the money, and the women would have no choice but to stay home, clean the

Women in the nineteenth century lived in a time characterized by gender inequality. At the beginning of the century, women could not vote, could not be sued, were extremely limited over personal property after marriage, and were expected to remain obedient to their husbands and fathers.( women’s suffrage movement 1) In most situations, the men would have to go to work and bring home the money, and the women would have no choice but to stay home, clean the

The Nineteenth Century, often nicknamed the Victorian Age, was an era in which gender roles were considered to be completely different in nature. The main difference was that men were portrayed as powerful, independent, and ambitious, while women were viewed as weak, domestic and dependent. The two sexes inhabited a ‘separate sphere’ and only came together in the early morning and late night. With the thought that women were supposed to be more passive and pure than men, came the known fact that women were also more easily corrupted. During the nineteenth century “real” women were thought to have little to no sexual desire. Sex was a taboo subject before marriage and often enough most women learnt what sex was on the night of their wedding. Fashion also progressed in order to supplement the common view of sexuality and dominance. Long skirts with many layers made it difficult and time consuming to dress and undress. Society and economy determined that women were best fit to work at home and take care of their “wifely” duties. Boarding school or a household governesses coached young women in what were known as ‘accomplishments’. Men usually travelled to their place of work for the day and the women and children were left at home to oversee the household duties. A “really good” housekeeper was almost always unhappy, though. While doing the most for others, the housewife usually ruined her own mental and physical health. Weekly schedules and rational designs were formed for the

The short story, the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman can be analyzed in depth by both the psycho-analytic theory and the feminist theory. On one hand the reader witnesses the mind of a woman who travels the road from sanity to insanity to suicide “caused” by the wallpaper she grows to despise in her bedroom. On the other hand, the reader gets a vivid picture of a woman’s place in 1911 and how she was treated when dealing what we now term as post-partum depression. The woman I met in this story was constantly watched and controlled by her husband to such an extreme that she eventually becomes pychootic and plots to make her escape.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" tells the story of a woman living in the nineteenth century who suffers from postpartum depression. The true meaning implicit in Charlotte's story goes beyond a simple psychological speculation. The story consists of a series of cleverly constructed short paragraphs, in which the author illustrates, through the unnamed protagonist's experiences, the possible outcome of women's acceptance of men's supposed intellectual superiority. The rigid social norms of the nineteenth century, characterized by oppression and discrimination against women, are supposedly among the causes of the protagonist's depression. However, it is her husband's tyrannical attitude what ultimately

In the 19th century a woman's main duty was to take care of the household. They were in charge of the cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children. During this time, most women didn’t work, and weren’t supposed to spend their time on getting an education. Since women couldn't get educations, they had to be married because they weren’t able to support themselves. The women were in charge of the family and house, while the man was in charge of some duties in the house and making money to support them. In the

During the nineteenth century, women played various different roles in society from millworkers to housewife’s, but that was mainly influenced by social status, (class) marital status, and what region of the country they lived in, not so much the decision of the woman herself. The idea of what a woman ought to be doing differed from different ends of the spectrum, for instance in document number one, in chapter ten in Constructing The American past titled “Religious Women” by A.J. Graves is states that “home is her appropriate spere of action;” it then goes on to say that if she leaves her sphere of action to indulge in other activities that, “she is deserting the station which God and nature have assigned to her”.