Imaginative Liberation
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper” the reader is able to see the traditional marital ways in the 1800’s, and goes on to show the mental instability that many women faced during this era. This story gives an infinite example of how women were treated as second class citizens with their authoritative male figures, and treating them and keeping them in their childish ways. John, the narrator’s husband a bright physician caught up in his own success and superiority over his wife goes about controlling every aspect of her life. This is a major problem for the narrator because she is obligated to listen to what her husband says, disregarding anything she might think is plausible to him. Firstly the narrator is sane and fully aware of her surroundings. However the narrator is …show more content…
In the opening scenes it shows her daily life and how her husband’s oppressiveness and superiority over her forces her to keep her thoughts to herself. Unfortunately the narrator is forced to confine her thoughts on paper and uses it as a social outlet to cure her sickness. “There comes John, and I must put this away, he hates to have me write a word”(Gilman 480). The reader can conclude that the narrator’s husband is unaware of the ongoing problem that his wife is having, and seems to have his own opinion on how she will get better. In addition, Marjean Purinton, an English teacher at Texas Tech University, drew upon literary criticism of “The Yellow Wallpaper” that concludes “…women were expected to marry and that marriage itself with its obligatory child-rearing expectations, often confined women to the home, isolated for other women and their own selfhood’s” (par.18). Clearly this quote briefly describes the mental and physical confinement women were faced with in the past, and allows the reader to empathetically side with women in the twenty first
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper” the reader is able to see the traditional marital ways in the 1800’s, and goes on to show the mental instability that many women faced during this era. This story gives an infinite example of how women were treated as second class citizens with their authoritative male figures, and treating them and keeping them in their childish ways. John, the narrator’s husband a bright physician caught up in his own success and superiority over his wife goes about controlling every aspect of her life. This is a major problem for the narrator because she is obligated to listen to what her husband says, disregarding anything she might think is plausible to him. Firstly the narrator is sane and fully aware of her surroundings. However the narrator is …show more content…
In the opening scenes it shows her daily life and how her husband’s oppressiveness and superiority over her forces her to keep her thoughts to herself. Unfortunately the narrator is forced to confine her thoughts on paper and uses it as a social outlet to cure her sickness. “There comes John, and I must put this away, he hates to have me write a word”(Gilman 480). The reader can conclude that the narrator’s husband is unaware of the ongoing problem that his wife is having, and seems to have his own opinion on how she will get better. In addition, Marjean Purinton, an English teacher at Texas Tech University, drew upon literary criticism of “The Yellow Wallpaper” that concludes “…women were expected to marry and that marriage itself with its obligatory child-rearing expectations, often confined women to the home, isolated for other women and their own selfhood’s” (par.18). Clearly this quote briefly describes the mental and physical confinement women were faced with in the past, and allows the reader to empathetically side with women in the twenty first