The Yellow Wallpaper - Essay Example

The Yellow Wallpaper The Yellow Paper is a story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was composed during a period of tremendous transformation. During the start and mid-nineteenth century, domestic ideas made American middle class women the moral and spiritual leaders of their households. Such distinct spheres principles proposed that the place of a woman was in the private area of the household, where the woman is expected to perform her prescribed duties of mother and wife. On the other hand, males would dominate the public arena through economics, politics, and work. This way of thinking started to change by the middle of the century when the seeds of early women’s rights were sowed. By the final period of the 1800s, feminist movements were gaining impetus in favor of transformation. For instance, the idea of the new woman started to spread in the late periods of 1800s and initial periods of 1900s as females advocated for extended responsibilities out of their home-roles that could draw on the intelligence of women and non-domestic talents and skills. This paper will look at how gender roles play a part in The Yellow Wallpaper. The Yellow Paper describes the traditional gender roles of the final period of 1800, through the view of male domination in marriage unions, with female existence synchronized to a more submissive or subservient position. Also, this story displays the social relationship between male supremacy through conventional norms and female confinement within the household. It is the idea of an imprisoned woman, being led by a velvet glove, shed in iron that earns the writer a significant responsibility in early feminist observation, specifically with the assenting theme of psychological positioning and patriarchal authority in the relationship. Though the story was published in the 19th century, its ability to highlight individuals’ nonfictional concern of gender subordination in the current period makes the story extremely unsettling. Through the story’s representation of the narrator’s relationship with her husband and brother, their child’s nanny, and her journal entries, the audience is shown a number of events that locate the dilemmas of a female, the narrator, existing in a male dictated social system referred to a patriarchy. In general, the story highlights a society made of the weak and the powerful, which is normally a feature of a society which is gender dominated. In addition, The Yellow Wallpaper discloses that societies formed on the basis of patriarchal-dominated social systems lead to the subordination of the minority gender (Gilman 1). The Yellow Wallpaper asserts that the domineering gender in society generates unwarranted authority while weakening the other gender. The narrator’s brother and John are expert physicians in their areas. This needs them to make a large number of significant choices with regard to medicine, which will be of significance to their area. Due to this portrayal, it is illustrated through the plot of the story that John and her brother abuse their medical power to make choices that other individuals have the capacity to make on their own, largely with regard to non-medical views. The husband of the narrator abuses his authority despite the narrator suffering from post-partum depression. The narrator is fully aware that she is sick, but her husband does not believe her. She asserts, “If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency-what is one to do?” (Gilman 1). This also shows that there is no other person who will believe her view over John’s even if she informs John and others that she is sick. Therefore, it may be argued that the narrator’s view will appear weaker than that of her husband. Moreover, John’s authority over the narrator, not her situation, exhibits itself in his choice to hire a nanny, with whom the narrator will converse with, sleep and walk in the house. It is also illustrated that when a gender in the society feels like they can control the other gender, they normally stop the minority gender from expressing their views in any manner. In the narrator’s view, his husband takes numerous creative, simple behaviors away from the narrator do good. Nevertheless, John is either aware or not aware that he is stopping the narrator from exhibiting her true behavior. It is talking, writing, and other congenial work for the narrator (Gilman 1). In addition, the text shows that the narrator has ideas of how to treat herself, but she cannot express her views because she is aware that there will be harmful consequences if she confronts her husband. Also, the narrator’s husband feels as if her self-expression will in reality invalidate any gains that she has attained since being in the house. She claims, “there comes John, and I must put this away - he hates to have me write a word.” (Gilman 1). This illustrates that she does not want her husband to see her writing because of the fear of what will happen to her. The notion that John will penalize her if he finds her writing makes her disease to get worse. This is because her husband locates her journal, making her to move into a condition of tumultuous depression. The imprisonment of the narrator makes her to search for expression in a different are aside from her journal. The narrator becomes extremely obsessed with establishing the sequence, that in the end, she turns out to be the woman attempting to escape. It is the narrator’s husband strict rules that make the narrator become insane, and can never recover from her insanity. The husband, subjective on his view of a gender subjugated society, effectively conquers the narrator to the point of absolute insanity merely because he believes his wife should not articulate herself. In conclusion, the text construes that patriarchal social systems employ their wrong idea of superiority to make the other gender feel weak. Normally, the roles of the domineering gender makes the minority gender feel subordinated by their strict rules, extreme use of authority, treating them like second-class citizens. Work Cited Gilman, C. P. The Yellow Wallpaper. Massachusetts: Small & Maynard, 1899. Print. Read More