Poem Analysis: Imprisoned In Marriage

Jessica Compton
Composition II
Mrs. Govia
July 17, 2013

Imprisoned in Marriage

“I’m wife; I’ve finished that” by Emily Dickinson can be comparable to The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman. Both literatures are written from a feminist prospective and have to do with patriarchal societies. Both pieces of literature were written during patriarchal time periods. Just like in The Yellow Wallpaper, in the poem “I’m wife”, the woman is submissive to her husband, and is unable to be herself, but only a wife and the woman that society has made her be. In both works, it talks about how it is better for the woman to stay as the figure society has made her, and both works use symbols to demonstrate how these patriarchal societies work, and
John is a physician of high standing, and what he says about her condition and treatment is what is “right”. In the story the narrator states “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? My brother is also a physician of high standing and he says the same thing. Personally I don’t agree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good” (Gilman 355). The narrator is unable to say what she thinks, because her friends believe what her husband, a male physician of high standing, says over what she says. Kasmer said, “the narrator’s husband has taken away his wife’s ability to speak her own thoughts by reassuring her friends that there is ‘really nothing the matter’ with her”. John is robbing the narrator of a voice and belittles her. He doesn’t take the illness seriously, so it convinces the narrator to believe that he is right and she is fine. The room that the narrator is confined in, she describes was once a “nursery” (Gilman), which infantilizes the narrator also. The narrator isn’t given a voice in her own life and is not in control, just as a child is. The narrator acts like a child around her husband and is unable to talk to him about how she really feels,
The narrator writes “I don’t know why I write this… John would think it absurd. But I must say what I feel and think in some way—it is such a relief!” (Gilman 359). This shows that the narrator is trying to find some way to express herself, because she can’t do so with John, so she writes and this is her form of release.
The narrator defines women throughout the story as well. She describes the wallpaper and the women trapped inside it. The narrator says of Jennie, “She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no other profession” (Gilman 358). This shows that the narrator believes a woman’s role is a housekeeper since that is all she knows. The narrator is characterized as a writer, because she is unlike the other women. John warns her against this imagination and forbids her to write, which again is controlling of