Throughout history, women have been seen as oppressed or neglected in the eyes of many. This can be seen through their lack of voting rights before the late 1920s, or the difference in pay even though they hold the same positions as men. Those who have been oppressed or neglected seek salvation – deliverance from the restraints that tie them down and the people who force them into submission. Salvation comes with a high price and if it is not gone about in an effective manner, it can backfire and turn an attempt for salvation into an abundance of oppression, this time self-inflicted. In her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Gilman defines the parallels and similarities between oppression and salvation, and also how the suppression
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These are shown through insight into the main character through elements of irony, foreshadowing, symbolism, dialogue and imagery. The differences between oppression and salvation are initially presented to the reader through the various times and ways in which the main character is at the mercy of her husband, John. John: the doctor, the husband, the dictator. There is not a juncture where he did not take it upon himself to dictate what she can and cannot do, thereby establishing the conventional idea of gender roles and the oppression of women. She says she “personally [I] disagree[s] with their ideas” and “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition…” (Gilman 1670). Although she feels oppressed and controlled, she conforms to his desires for some time. Over the course of the story, the main characters patience and freedom deteriorates even more so than before. She begins to pursue her salvation by disregarding her husbands’ wishes and lying to him. John …show more content…
The combination of personal weakness and the toll of society’s unspoken control can be reasons behind the suppression of women. Both of these ideas are depicted in The Yellow Wallpaper. She hallucinates that there is a woman behind the paper and “she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern—it stranges so…” (Gilman 1678). This alone can represent women’s battle of being “strangled” by men and that on every inch of surface this world has to offer, there are women trying to climb through their own version of the yellow wallpaper. In an attempt to release the illustration of women struggling, she tears pieces of the wallpaper away day by day to remove the idea that haunts her in her sleep. Living in fear of her husband, “she [I] always locks the door when she [I] creep[s]. She [I] can’t do it by night, for I know John would suspect something at once” (Gilman 1679). The window in the room represents freedom. She is so close to being unchained from the male dominate society, however is not able to free her spirit from the confines of her own mind within the room. In order to suppress a social being, such as a woman, the very soul and spirit of the body must also be suppressed. The society the author lives in keeps her, and other women, at the lowest level of society as possible. She ultimately is always at the will or mercy of
These are shown through insight into the main character through elements of irony, foreshadowing, symbolism, dialogue and imagery. The differences between oppression and salvation are initially presented to the reader through the various times and ways in which the main character is at the mercy of her husband, John. John: the doctor, the husband, the dictator. There is not a juncture where he did not take it upon himself to dictate what she can and cannot do, thereby establishing the conventional idea of gender roles and the oppression of women. She says she “personally [I] disagree[s] with their ideas” and “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition…” (Gilman 1670). Although she feels oppressed and controlled, she conforms to his desires for some time. Over the course of the story, the main characters patience and freedom deteriorates even more so than before. She begins to pursue her salvation by disregarding her husbands’ wishes and lying to him. John …show more content…
The combination of personal weakness and the toll of society’s unspoken control can be reasons behind the suppression of women. Both of these ideas are depicted in The Yellow Wallpaper. She hallucinates that there is a woman behind the paper and “she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern—it stranges so…” (Gilman 1678). This alone can represent women’s battle of being “strangled” by men and that on every inch of surface this world has to offer, there are women trying to climb through their own version of the yellow wallpaper. In an attempt to release the illustration of women struggling, she tears pieces of the wallpaper away day by day to remove the idea that haunts her in her sleep. Living in fear of her husband, “she [I] always locks the door when she [I] creep[s]. She [I] can’t do it by night, for I know John would suspect something at once” (Gilman 1679). The window in the room represents freedom. She is so close to being unchained from the male dominate society, however is not able to free her spirit from the confines of her own mind within the room. In order to suppress a social being, such as a woman, the very soul and spirit of the body must also be suppressed. The society the author lives in keeps her, and other women, at the lowest level of society as possible. She ultimately is always at the will or mercy of