The Role Of Women In The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper is a strong view of how women be oppressed by the opposite sex in our past times. A women’s role was to be at home taking care of children and tending to the daily house chores while the man tends to his job and attend any financial necessities. Through the story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator gives an inside view of not only her side of opinions but how obeying her husband was to ensure her health. Female oppression was unrecognized during the 1800s because of social norms in family households where the man was dominant head of house hold and the woman was obedient and was given the simplest tasks. In the nineteenth century women and men played the roles of homemaker and business man. Men were expected to take care of their families by providing a home, food, and any other needs by having a job. Women were to stay at home and tend to children, as well as any household necessities. Females were expected to play a domestic role of a mother and wife, making sure their husbands were pleased as well as raising their children. “…with the role of women in nineteenth-century society, particularly within the realms of marriage, maternity, and
Instead of having his wife go outside, enjoy the garden, and meet others, he prefers she stay inside barred up and living in a nursery which she desperately dislikes. Her views and opinions are irrelevant because she is a female who does not know more than her male counterpart. He makes the choices and decisions regardless of what she believes is best in her interests. “The narrator wants very much to work, but by keeping her unemployed and secluded, her husband ensures his wife’s reliance on him” (Quawas). In any way to guarantee that his wife is to remain obedient and kept within his reach, her husband would rather keep her away from anyone or anything that might challenge his