Oppression of Women in The Yellow Wallpaper
Throughout time, women have been treated as less than men, and authors like Charlotte Perkins Gilman have revealed the unequal power in her writings, such as in works like Women and Economics and The Yellow Wallpaper. Her most well-known story, The Yellow Wallpaper, follows the story of a woman who is undergoing treatment for postpartum depression. The narrator, the woman, was prescribed a rest cure, a treatment in which the patient can only rest and is allowed limited intellectual activity. Her treatment takes place in the top room of the summer home her husband, John, rented. The room was formerly a nursery and has horrid yellow wallpaper that the narrator cannot stand. During her rest cure, her …show more content…
The narrator addresses the unequal power in her relationship with John when she says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage,” (Gilman 1). During this time period, marriage was a superior-inferior relationship rather than a connection between two equals. The woman were considered less than men. The narrator shows this when she explains that John laughing at her is normal and “expected in marriage.” In an essay titled “Writing Oneself into Existence: The Yellow Wallpaper and the Question of Female Self-Definition”, it also addresses the relationship conflict between the two, saying that, “It becomes immediately obvious that something is not right in the relationship between John and the narrator. He does not take her serious and she seems to have already partly resigned to his superiority… Gilman sketches the typical husband-wife relationship of her time, in which it was absolutely clear what role the woman has to embody, at least from a male point of view...” (Troll 5). The quotes from Troll and the story demonstrate the distribution of power between John and the narrator. John has more power and control in the relationship and does not take the narrator seriously, as shown in the quote from the story where John laughs at her. The narrator is adjusted to being inferior in the relationship because that was how marriage worked in the 1800s, where the man was in charge and the woman had no control and was not taken seriously. In the 1800s, men displayed control over majority of their wives’ lives and were considered superior to women. An example of John’s control over the narrator is when she writes, “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (Gilman 3). The narrator sarcastically says this in a loving tone, which signifies that the narrator thinks that John is
Throughout time, women have been treated as less than men, and authors like Charlotte Perkins Gilman have revealed the unequal power in her writings, such as in works like Women and Economics and The Yellow Wallpaper. Her most well-known story, The Yellow Wallpaper, follows the story of a woman who is undergoing treatment for postpartum depression. The narrator, the woman, was prescribed a rest cure, a treatment in which the patient can only rest and is allowed limited intellectual activity. Her treatment takes place in the top room of the summer home her husband, John, rented. The room was formerly a nursery and has horrid yellow wallpaper that the narrator cannot stand. During her rest cure, her …show more content…
The narrator addresses the unequal power in her relationship with John when she says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage,” (Gilman 1). During this time period, marriage was a superior-inferior relationship rather than a connection between two equals. The woman were considered less than men. The narrator shows this when she explains that John laughing at her is normal and “expected in marriage.” In an essay titled “Writing Oneself into Existence: The Yellow Wallpaper and the Question of Female Self-Definition”, it also addresses the relationship conflict between the two, saying that, “It becomes immediately obvious that something is not right in the relationship between John and the narrator. He does not take her serious and she seems to have already partly resigned to his superiority… Gilman sketches the typical husband-wife relationship of her time, in which it was absolutely clear what role the woman has to embody, at least from a male point of view...” (Troll 5). The quotes from Troll and the story demonstrate the distribution of power between John and the narrator. John has more power and control in the relationship and does not take the narrator seriously, as shown in the quote from the story where John laughs at her. The narrator is adjusted to being inferior in the relationship because that was how marriage worked in the 1800s, where the man was in charge and the woman had no control and was not taken seriously. In the 1800s, men displayed control over majority of their wives’ lives and were considered superior to women. An example of John’s control over the narrator is when she writes, “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (Gilman 3). The narrator sarcastically says this in a loving tone, which signifies that the narrator thinks that John is