Feminism in the Nineteenth Century
Historically, women have often times been forced into roles as property. This role for women is usually one with a lack of self-expression and severely limited in the ability to explore and find their inner selves. In Charlotte Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", these concepts are clearly expressed through the characters in the story and the narrator's evolvement further and further into the treacherous waters of her suppressed imagination. This story is less about the yellowing wallpaper and more about a woman's struggle to be heard in a man's world.
Written in 1892 and set in an English home in America, the setting of this short story remains in a time where oppression of women were at an egregious high. A prominent portrayal of this rings to be true when Gilman's wrote for the narrator to say, "If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do? . . . am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas". In this quote, one can see the way the woman is forced into passiveness. She believes "that congenial work, with excitement and …show more content…
In Gilman's biography, it mentions her life as a reluctant housewife at the age of 24. This was because she feared her ability to be active and productive in her own work. After the birth of her child, she went into depression with a prescription of a life free from physical and intellectual activities. Similarly to the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper", after three months she changed and returned back to her previous active lifestyle. Throughout Gilman's life, she remained a dedicated feminist, which begs to make the comparison between her ideology and the meaning behind this short
Historically, women have often times been forced into roles as property. This role for women is usually one with a lack of self-expression and severely limited in the ability to explore and find their inner selves. In Charlotte Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", these concepts are clearly expressed through the characters in the story and the narrator's evolvement further and further into the treacherous waters of her suppressed imagination. This story is less about the yellowing wallpaper and more about a woman's struggle to be heard in a man's world.
Written in 1892 and set in an English home in America, the setting of this short story remains in a time where oppression of women were at an egregious high. A prominent portrayal of this rings to be true when Gilman's wrote for the narrator to say, "If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do? . . . am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas". In this quote, one can see the way the woman is forced into passiveness. She believes "that congenial work, with excitement and …show more content…
In Gilman's biography, it mentions her life as a reluctant housewife at the age of 24. This was because she feared her ability to be active and productive in her own work. After the birth of her child, she went into depression with a prescription of a life free from physical and intellectual activities. Similarly to the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper", after three months she changed and returned back to her previous active lifestyle. Throughout Gilman's life, she remained a dedicated feminist, which begs to make the comparison between her ideology and the meaning behind this short