Theme Of Oppression Of Women In The Yellow Wallpaper

Throughout much of history, the relationship between man and woman has been patriarchal in the least. In fact, it has only been a century that women have been able to vote in the United States, a country that is progressive in its freedom. Only recently have feminist and women’s rights movements started to appear to address common grievances among women. However, other countries societies’ are still much more patriarchal. In recent years, feminist themes have been interpreted in older works of literature. Namely, in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a strong advocate in the developing years of support for women’s rights. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman portrays a patriarchal oppression through the usage of symbols …show more content…
Most notably is the room the narrator inhabits as a setting for the majority of the story as it is portrayed as a prison. This is shown as “the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” These bars serve as a direct symbol of restriction onto the narrator as well as characterizing the room as a prison which results in revealing how trapped the narrator is literally as well as figuratively. This entrapment is further shown through the windows as one provides a view of “the garden, those mysterious deep-shaded arbors, the riotous ole-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees. Contrarily, the other window provides a view of “a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate.” This juxtaposition of the windows is in relation to her inward struggles and appearance in contrast to the outward appearance she portrays to the rest of the world. This inward versus outward appearance is also shown in the narrator’s personal thoughts throughout her journal which the reader is a participant to. Through this the narrator is able to reveal the oppression that she is a subject to. This oppressive setting is also shown through the wallpaper at “night in any kind of light, in twilight, candle light, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars!” The moonlight casts the shadow of the bars across the wallpaper resulting …show more content…
The most prominent symbol is the yellow wallpaper which “embodies this complex cacophony of discourses that come to exist within the terrain the narrator inhabits.” Through this it “is thick with life, expression, and suffering.” The narrator’s encounter with the wallpaper shows her ignorance due to her discourse and the resultant oppression that stems from it. She is unable to decipher its meaning because she is a product of the culture and as a result has a limited consciousness. Thus, the “wallpaper signifies the oppressive situation in which the woman finds herself.” This is furthered when she finds there to be a woman in the wallpaper who is really just a representation of herself. It is not till the end of the story which the narrator frees the woman behind the wallpaper as the “death sentence imposed by patriarchy is violent and relentless.” To this end, upon freeing the woman from the wallpaper, she frees herself resulting in a break from patriarchy in relation to her husband. This is in part to the yellow wallpaper being removed which symbolically away the oppression. As a result, gives a death to the preexisting narrator while also imposing a sense of death as her husband faints from shock. Through the yellow wallpaper, Gilman is able to craft a symbol that embodies a thematic element of oppression under a patriarchal relation.
In conclusion, “The Yellow Wallpaper” gives an insight into early themes