Essay On Gender Roles In The Yellow Wallpaper

Gilman fluctuates the ownership of power to a significant extent within ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’. The Gender roles in the narrative of the ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ conform to stereotypes for the most part as the Male is a rich, high-ranking physician. Although, John appears to be a caring and devoted husband one could argue that he uses his gender and his developed educational history to manipulate and control the young female. However, to some extent this serves as a comparison to the change in dominance and power within the narrator and other females in the narrative which aids her eventual escape.
Initially, the first display of John’s controlling nature is through is confinement of the narrator to an individual room in a vast home, which seems …show more content…
Although, this anonymity may be used to indicate that this tyranny happens to all women everywhere and by being nameless Gilman is representing all. This is specified when Gilman presents the woman as sometimes being able to see multiple women imprisoned in the wallpaper as she often thinks ‘there are a great many women behind’ the paper demonstrating the confinement of the female gender. Due to this is widespread captivity and oppression it is only through the bonding of women that the narrator begins to possess more supremacy as sisterhood is described to be powerful and is shown to overpower men in many different literature …show more content…
This connotes the narrator and her story and the way that she is controlled by the traditions (‘patterns’) of society and that is why she is obeying her husband. Nevertheless, eventually these ‘patterns’ (traditions) begin to ‘move’ as the woman ‘shakes’ it which implants into the narrators subconscious the new idea that she too can escape, injecting a more ambitious attitude and that she too shake out of the holds of tradition within the gender power struggles (Hypodermic Needle