The connection of isolation and madness of women in American literature.
Women were never treated equally as men. As a result of suffrage organizations actions women got voting right in 1920. But the social expectations, gender norms, loneliness, and patriarchal type of family threatened the mental health of many women in those days. The isolation of women at that time as a dedication to the ideals of True
Womanhood very often led women to madness. These feminine dramas have become literary inspirations, and themes of isolation and insanity often occur in literary texts.
Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story narrated by a woman who suffers for nervous depression, which in her opinion is belittled by her husband who is also her physician. She …show more content…
Faulkner presented the story of a girl who by being isolated from society by her father, became mentally ill. She wasn’t able to live in society on her own, especially in a society which is negatively oriented for her. Being isolated in childhood caused panic fear of change, so when Homer tells her that he won’t marry her it raises madness in her. She buys arsenic and poison him so he could always be with her.
In both texts of Gilman and Faulkner the connection between isolation and madness can be observed. Both main characters are dominated by men, and not able to stand against patriarchal order in society. Isolation caused by men who controlled the lives of both characters influenced their mental health and social life. The narrator of Gilman’s story was so unhappy in her marriage that she got mad to escape from this relationship, and Emily caused tragedy because as an isolated from the world for the whole life she never learned how to lose things and people, and she wasn’t able to accept any change in her life. The isolation caused the madness of characters in both
Women were never treated equally as men. As a result of suffrage organizations actions women got voting right in 1920. But the social expectations, gender norms, loneliness, and patriarchal type of family threatened the mental health of many women in those days. The isolation of women at that time as a dedication to the ideals of True
Womanhood very often led women to madness. These feminine dramas have become literary inspirations, and themes of isolation and insanity often occur in literary texts.
Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story narrated by a woman who suffers for nervous depression, which in her opinion is belittled by her husband who is also her physician. She …show more content…
Faulkner presented the story of a girl who by being isolated from society by her father, became mentally ill. She wasn’t able to live in society on her own, especially in a society which is negatively oriented for her. Being isolated in childhood caused panic fear of change, so when Homer tells her that he won’t marry her it raises madness in her. She buys arsenic and poison him so he could always be with her.
In both texts of Gilman and Faulkner the connection between isolation and madness can be observed. Both main characters are dominated by men, and not able to stand against patriarchal order in society. Isolation caused by men who controlled the lives of both characters influenced their mental health and social life. The narrator of Gilman’s story was so unhappy in her marriage that she got mad to escape from this relationship, and Emily caused tragedy because as an isolated from the world for the whole life she never learned how to lose things and people, and she wasn’t able to accept any change in her life. The isolation caused the madness of characters in both