Sexism In Ernest Hemingway's The Yellow Wallpaper

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Freedom of thought hasn't always been accessible for women. In the 19th century women were belittled and restricted from expressing their thoughts and feelings. And when a woman did express any form of emotion other than obedience, she was labeled as insane. Ernest Hemingway gave a reporter a perfect response of sexism over a friend's breakup, ¨But why couldn’t he have told her to go to hell? Because she was sick. It’s being sick makes them act so bloody awful usually and it’s because they’re sick you can’t treat them as you should¨. Sexism like this is what created the illusion of women being insane and difficult when they werent being pleasing to a man. In ¨The Yellow Wallpaper¨ the narrator challenges the Victorian patriarchy to try and …show more content…
The wallpaper ultimately symbolizes the trapped woman inside of the narrator, a mentally ill woman in true need of care. The narrator herself is fixed on seeing the woman in the wallpaper and setting her free. ¨..that poor thing began to crawl and shake the patter, I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook, I shook, and she pulled and before morning we had peeled off yards of the paper. ¨..that poor thing began to crawl and shake the patter, I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook, I shook, and she pulled and before morning we had peeled off yards of the paper. Using a woman being trapped behind a wallpaper isn't a shocking symbolism to how the author herself is trapped in an isolated home. Throughout the story there is much focus on the time of day. The lightness and darkness of the day are symbolisms of how the author feels. “At night in any type of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be (Gilman).” During the day the woman behind the yellow wallpaper is quiet and restrained, similar to how the author is during daylight. As night falls the woman behind the wallpaper is alive and determined to shake the bars to freedom. The author is much alive at night like the woman because she suppresses her activity while John is near. The woman in the wallpaper is a symbol of not only the mental state of the author but the freedom she craves to have. The contrast between daytime with its restrictions and nighttime with its freedoms are symbolized by the alternating effects of sunlight and daylight upon the

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