When discussing gender roles or feminism in literary works, several would tend to gravitate to the idea of gender focusing solely on the plight of women. However, feminism and the restrictive power of gender roles heavily affect men as well. The dynamic of people believing sexism to only influence women is intriguingly played out in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Many of the analyses I’ve read explain how Gilman’s story shows societal pressures affecting women during that time and how they still have an impact on us today. While this popular theory is evident to be true, even by Gilman’s own admission, I would challenge this idea and push to say that while, yes, “The Yellow Wallpaper” does enlighten us to the…
Each individual in the world has unique tendencies, passions, and emotions. All of which can be expressed or tied to a specific object. Whether the feelings are negative or positive, they can vary in intensity. The dog in “My Kids Dog” and the chrysanthemums in the story “The Chrysanthemums” both represent strong emotions expressed by the protagonists.…
Elisa is a lonely woman leading what seems like a mechanical life, her pride and focus is on her garden of chrysanthemums. They lived in Salinas Valley in the 1930’s where her husband raised cattle and she did nothing more then plant her garden and wonder about life outside of Salinas Valley. Henry, Elisa’s husband thinks like a business man and doesn’t share her glee to the garden. the tinker on the other hand in the process of trying to earn a buck, honeypots her with feign interest in them.…
Throughout the story the reader can see how the women are treated and what their role in the society is. Most importantly the reader can see how poorly the women are treated. In the book the women are treated very poorly as they have little to no choice in who they marry, men are above them in power, and men can have relations with other women but women can’t have…
Women use literature to express how society views them. The song “Just A Girl” by No Doubt and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman were written one hundred years apart from one another but still share a lot of similarities in themes. Both the song and the Story explore themes of women being restricted, controlled, and dismissed. The Yellow Wallpaper is the narrator writing about what is happening to her while going through the rest cure in a journal that she hides from her husband.…
In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is supposed to lie there not taxing her mind or body so she can heal. While in “Girl”, Kincaid shows the expectations of mothers for their daughters. What differs the most is how the conflict is handled, while the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” tries to defy some of the restrictions placed upon her, the daughter in “Girl” only questions some of the things her mother says. The mother’s words also sound like what someone lists off when they are trying to remember something. Thus creating a sense that the girl wants to follow her mother’s advice but still has confusion about the advice given to her.…
In both books, women are used to show their influence and effect on men, and their lives. These roles vary from monsters to godesses. Each role deepening our knowledge of men and how they deal with the different effects of women. Women were unimportant compared to men. Often times in society, women were viewed as prizes for men.…
In every short story, there are many themes involved in the character’s lives. One particular theme which stood out was the marital relationships between each character. Marriage is key to the plot of each of the stories because it can be obvious whether things may be on the edge or just right. In order to understand a marital relationship, it’s good to see the interactions between the characters. A lot can be said about the character’s personality by the way they interact with their significant other.…
After the Miller tells his tale the Reeve is personally offended. The Reeve was easily angered from the story and said he would break the Millers neck which establishes his choleric personality. However, the Reeve does not actually commit these actions, he simply tells a tale personally attacking the Miller. In The Reeve’s Tale Chaucer displays women as property; however, he is a product of his environment. In the Middle Ages, women were considered their husband’s or father’s property.…
“Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” -Vince Lombardi. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham introduces two societies, Waknuk and Sealand. Waknuk is an intolerant society in a developmental hiatus, and Sealand is a technologically and socially sophisticated community. Waknuk is ignorant of individual’s abilities, causing division among it’s people.…
The women were there to collect some of her belongings and bring them to her cell. The nineteenth amendment which gave women equal rights to men was not ratified until 1920, before the time the play was set in. This is clearly seen throughout the play by the way the women are spoken to and treated. The investigation that takes place illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole through two major themes: social oppression of women, and the blindness of men. The investigation of the murder not only enlightens some of the characters, but illuminates the meaning of the work; that women are not trifle.…
In the late 1800’s, the dynamic of men and women made it so women were inferior to men. Women were looked upon as having no impact on society other than to have children and take care of the home. It was difficult for women to express themselves in a world controlled by men. The men held the jobs, received educations, and ruled society. In "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator experiences this kind of control from her husband, John.…
This creates a direct contrast with the overarching story of the book, showing that the book is trying to convey a lesson about the real power and autonomy of women, which explains why the narrative perspective is a major part…
The protagonist in Alice Munro’s short story ‘Boys and Girls’ is about a young girl whose life is characterized by gender roles set by the society during the 20th century. Munro specifically does not give the protagonist a name within the story to indicate that she is an individual without identity or any power of her own, whereas her brother, a boy, is given the name Laird (The Gender Conflict in Munro’s “Boys and Girls”). Discrimination is further emphasized when the protagonist’s father praises his daughter to the salesman whose surprised reply was “I thought it was only a girl” (Munro, "Boys and Girls"). This gender discrimination affects the relationship the young girl has with her father as she tries to “imitate and identify herself to…
The texts as a whole have a different option of the in female characters than the male characters in their texts. The texts have a positive representation of women while the male characters in the text patronize and hinder the women. The…