Gillam’s The Yellow Wallpaper and O’Conner’s A Good Man’s Hard to Find both imitate the horrific practice of dehumanization. After digging deep and analyzing the characters in each text the practice of dehumanization is uncovered. In The Yellow Wallpaper Gillman illustrates the husband/doctor prescribing treatment that treats his wife in a dehumanizing way. Likewise, O’Conner demonstrates dehumanization through the Grandmother and her use of titles in replacement of names. Throughout both The Yellow Wallpaper and A Good Man is Hard to Find Dehumanization wreaks havoc on the main and supporting characters mentally and physically. First and foremost, it’s imperative to understand the meaning of dehumanization to fully be able to analyze it
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First it seems fairly strange that the main character is never given a name. She is the main character and narrator of the story but is never specifically named. That is the first red flag that something in this case someone is being looked to as inferior. The main characters husband doubles as her doctor, placing him in complete control of her life and wellbeing. Sadly, she is diagnosed with an “nervous disorder” by her husband that he feels requires her to do absolutely nothing to heal. Over the progression of her treatment we see her husband calling her pet names and beginning to look at her more as a subject than a spouse. For instance, she writes, “Then he took me by the arms and called me a blessed little goose” (Gillman). By calling her a blessed little goose his dehumanizing thoughts begin to escape through his mouth. This quickly escalades to dehumanizing her on a physical level. The women is held in a room fit to be in an insane asylum with no company or stimulation, just like that of an abandoned animal. As time passes on and her animal like treatment continues, and she begins to catch on to the feelings he holds towards her. She realizes they do not stem from love instead she’s held like lab rat studied and analyzed without fair treatment. She states, “the fact is I am getting a little afraid of John…. It strikes me occasionally just a scientific hypothesis that perhaps is the paper” (Gillman). At this point she catches on to dehumanization she’s enduring, she no longer thinks he’s doing it out of love, its strictly research. Only dehumanization can formulate an excuse for the husband to treat his wife like a science
First it seems fairly strange that the main character is never given a name. She is the main character and narrator of the story but is never specifically named. That is the first red flag that something in this case someone is being looked to as inferior. The main characters husband doubles as her doctor, placing him in complete control of her life and wellbeing. Sadly, she is diagnosed with an “nervous disorder” by her husband that he feels requires her to do absolutely nothing to heal. Over the progression of her treatment we see her husband calling her pet names and beginning to look at her more as a subject than a spouse. For instance, she writes, “Then he took me by the arms and called me a blessed little goose” (Gillman). By calling her a blessed little goose his dehumanizing thoughts begin to escape through his mouth. This quickly escalades to dehumanizing her on a physical level. The women is held in a room fit to be in an insane asylum with no company or stimulation, just like that of an abandoned animal. As time passes on and her animal like treatment continues, and she begins to catch on to the feelings he holds towards her. She realizes they do not stem from love instead she’s held like lab rat studied and analyzed without fair treatment. She states, “the fact is I am getting a little afraid of John…. It strikes me occasionally just a scientific hypothesis that perhaps is the paper” (Gillman). At this point she catches on to dehumanization she’s enduring, she no longer thinks he’s doing it out of love, its strictly research. Only dehumanization can formulate an excuse for the husband to treat his wife like a science