Cult Of True Womanhood Analysis

Before the twenty – first century, the role of women was clearly defined by the standards of the society. The roles of these women reflected the male dominance in the society and perpetuated ideological prisons that led to the silence of the women at the hands of their male counterparts. Servants tended the needs of the family and the ideological Cult of True Womanhood, Domesticity and Purity were enforced to ensure that women remained passive and docile in their relationships. In essence women became vulnerable and dependent on the males as these males became were the self-proclaimed patriarchal head of the household. Charlotte Perkins-Gilman was one of the journalists and feminist intellectuals who had serious concerns about the social justice …show more content…
The mental struggles of the narrator lead the readers to recognize that this ideology forces the narrator to internalize her situation. She says: “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus” (Gilman, p. 1) then she would not feel as sick. But, she interrupts her train of thoughts as she inserts that John that it is better that she does not think about her situation. Instead, she forgets about her thoughts on what would make the best remedy for her condition and begins to speak about the house. The symbolism of the house and the wallpaper emerges as it shows the start of the obsession that the narrator feels about being trapped and feeling isolated from the rest of the society. The absence of friends in her life leaves the narrator to deal with the voices that she is hearing in her head. Arguably the voices stem from the voices shape her thoughts. The yellow wallpaper on the wall is significant as the narrator feelings of isolation are similar to the struggles of the women to get out of the picture. The internal monologue increases the madness in the narrator as she transfers her thoughts of her passivity into dreaming of ways that she could use to make her condition …show more content…
Gilman uses irony once more to show that the “things” that once appeared as disturbing to the narrator is now a reality. Arguably, the woman reaches a level of understanding of the ghostly women who are trapped in the wallpaper. She becomes jealous and frightened as she begins to accept that there is a high level of powerlessness in her condition and that she is a victim of isolation and entrapment in a world that closes in on her and decreases her consciousness of what is real. She frees the women in the wallpaper when she destroys the paper and this helps her to further recognize that she can achieve this freedom. Her life as she knows it becomes even more exciting as she embraces the freedom that she once craved. Clearly, Gilman skillfully incorporates the irony of the sickness with the historical feelings of entrapment in the wallpaper and force the readers to recognize that the passive roles of women in past leads to a symbolic entrapment that allows these women to suffer depression and lose their sanity to feelings of isolation. Finally, the narrator accepts that the woman in the wallpaper is a symbolic reflection of her as she creeps out of fear of going against the social standing of the power of the men in her life and stoops to a level of acceptance that forces her to retreat into