Preview

The Yellow Wallpaper Feminist Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
459 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Yellow Wallpaper Feminist Analysis
Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's Feminist Piece
Charlotte Perkins Gilman orchestrates an all-out feminist assault on societal male dominance in her work, “The Yellow Wallpaper”. She cleverly conceals her points in an attention-grabbing story about a wife seemingly held prisoner by her mental deterioration. However, the real captors turn out to be societal norms where men are in charge and other women unwittingly supporting the oppressors.
Set in the late 19th century, the story reflects the current state of society where men are in charge of everything and women must play a subservient role in most situations. Men are the experts and their opinions or determinations will not be challenged by women. As a physician, the husband tells his ailing
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Life For Women In The Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Life For Women In The Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    Lives for women in 1892 were heavily controlled by men. Women were treated as if they were inferior to men. Charlotte Perkins Gilman brings light to this problem in a interesting way. Gilman herself, was in fact driven to near madness and later claimed to have written “The Yellow Wallpaper” to protest this treatment of women like herself, and specifically to address her physician. Although they never replied to Gilman personally, they are said to have confessed to a friend that they had changed their treatment of hysterics after reading the story. While real life aspects are apparent it’s the symbolism and subliminal feminist in her story to show how a woman’s role in society is limited with no control or creative outlet.…

    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper Anaylisis
    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Yellow Wallpaper Anaylisis

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses her short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" to make determined statements about feminism and individuality. Gilman does so by taking the reader through the terrors of one woman's neurosis, her entire mental state characterized by her encounters with the wallpaper in her room.…

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Summary Of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper
    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Summary Of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

    Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, women’s rights have remained a strong and critical topic in many areas of life. Many politicians, opinion writers, and even authors write or discuss about women’s rights in order to gain sympathy for women or to stir action towards equality. However, in the later part of the 19th century, women were treated as no more than mere objects by men, without any empathy or love. One example that explores the rights of women during the time period is Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. In her short story, Gilman depicts the hurtful relationship between a powerless wife and a husband who has no regards for his spouse. Although the wife was submissive and obedient towards her husband in the…

    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Essay On The Yellow Wallpaper
    • 3424 Words
    • 14 Pages

    Essay On The Yellow Wallpaper

    “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman engages the audience into the inner self of a young mother and wife throughout the story. The story has grown from a remedy to depression to a female defiance to a male society. Gilman’s purpose in writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” shows the courage a woman had to demonstrate a positive change in her self-identity and free her from the social, domestic, and psychological confinement that were placed on women in the 1800’s. By writing the story from a first-person feministic point of view the narrator shows the struggle of women’s independence and individuality in a male dominated society through gender stereotype that exist between the society and the protagonist in “The Yellow Wallpaper.”…

    • 3424 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Protest Against Masculine Discrimination In Faulkner's A Rose
    • 1655 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Protest Against Masculine Discrimination In Faulkner's A Rose

    The patriarchal system is one of the foundations of Western civilization, being based on Christian beliefs regarding men and women’s proper roles in the society and in the domestic sphere. In her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Gilman makes a feminist statement by illustrating the failures of the patriarchal system, which condemns women to silence, isolation and decay. In the short story, the male character is twice a representative of this system, as a husband who dominates his wife privately, and as a physician who is able to dominate women in the public sphere, by imposing his judgements and prejudicial…

    • 1655 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Oppression In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper
    • 1519 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Oppression In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

    At first glance, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wall-Paper may seem to be a fairly simplistic text, which outlines a woman’s struggles with postpartum depression; however, with greater investigation, it can be determined that a deeper meaning is present. The Yellow Wall-Paper, with further analysis, can be interpreted as having a meaningful message, as the oppression of women is profiled. This message is gradually exposed along with the development of the characters, namely the narrator and her husband John, throughout the text. As the narrator experiences visions of women trapped in her walls, is forced to conform to specific gender roles, and is unable to express or communicate her own feelings, the impact which oppression has on the individual, as well as the idea of patriarchal society, is demonstrated.…

    • 1519 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A literary Analysis of the Yellow Wallpaper
    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A literary Analysis of the Yellow Wallpaper

    At a time where women had little say in how to live their own lives, increasingly more female novelists began to write about gender roles with a critical outlook on the patriarchal structure in society. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is one example of a feminist social criticism from the late 1800’s. In this short story, the female protagonist is prohibited to do what she wants to do and instead is forced by her husband to rest alone in a room to cure her of her postnatal depression, thus ironically becoming more ill and hallucinative.…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Gender Role Effects in "The Yellow Wallpaper"
    • 1580 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Gender Role Effects in "The Yellow Wallpaper"

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a feminist writer who wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” in the 1890’s. During this time period the woman were expected to keep the house clean, care for their children, and listen to their husbands. The men were expected to work a job and be the head of a household. The story narrates a woman’s severe depression which she thinks is linked to the yellow wallpaper. Charlotte Gilman experienced depression in her life and it inspired her to write “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The short story is based on a woman, not given a name in the text, who is very dependent on her husband. The narrator plays a gender role that is degraded by her successful husband, who is a doctor, because she is a female. John ignores his wife’s accusations with the wallpaper and looks down on the fact that she cannot fulfill her duty as a woman, mother, or wife by treating and calling her childish names.…

    • 1580 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Individuality in the Yellow Wallpaper --Jbnite
    • 665 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Individuality in the Yellow Wallpaper --Jbnite

    In the 19th century it was not an unlikely occurrence for women to be held back by men. The main character in The Yellow Wallpaper is being subjected to this type of oppression. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's novel graphically illustrates this oppression. The main characters inability to be recognized as an individual is the root of her inability to maintain her sanity throughout the book. As her state of mind worsens, she relates the wallpaper in her room to her struggles. She describes the wallpaper as consisting of "lame uncertain curves" that "suddenly commit suicide-plunge off at outrageous angles, destroying themselves in unheard of contradictions" (Gilman 31). This describes how her efforts in controlling her life also follow this same pattern. These patterns are representative of her and her methods of dealing with society.…

    • 665 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Women and Wallpaper: The role of women in "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkin Gilman
    • 1728 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Women and Wallpaper: The role of women in "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkin Gilman

    The story begins with the woman telling of her depression and both her husband and brother, who happen to be medical practitioners, dismissing her claims. She voices this when she writes in her journal, "[y]ou see, he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do?" Her claims are dismissed by the most important men in her life, and she feels helpless. She is told, by these men, how her own body is feeling. We have to understand that in this time and era, she is living in a patriarchal society. The men, as seen, controls much of what is going on, and in our protagonist's position even tries to control the state of her health. She, as all women of that era, were discouraged from venturing out of their domain, so she feels as though she must accept it when they put no value to her opinion. She gives further evidence of this when she speaks of her husband. "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage." This sentence illustrates the dominant-submissive relationship not only between our narrator and her husband, John, but most married women of the time. The sentence plays up the male laughing and the female assenting. He viewed her ideas as amusing, much as a father laughs at his daughter's silly fancies. It's much easier to understand this relationship if you view the narrator as the daughter, while her husband acts as a…

    • 1728 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper and Feminism
    • 2126 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The Yellow Wallpaper and Feminism

    One’s freedom is a privilege that is highly regarded, but in most cases one takes it for granted. Throughout history, men have had this right handed to them, while in contrast, women either had to fight and risk all they had or accept their meek rank in society due to their sex. This disadvantage drives women to lengths they normally would not succumb to feel free of the shortcomings that history has given them. In Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the dominance of a patriarchal society is exposed. The verisimilitude of Gilman’s imagery of the setting lengthily describes the isolation and confinement of the narrator and their effects on her. The house she is staying in is her own prison, and is a symbol of her isolation from society. Her room with the yellow wallpaper is another representation of the narrator’s oppression and her ambition to break free from society’s unattainable standards. Gilman’s message is that if women are acknowledged as fully actualized human beings, then there would be no need for “rest cures” or any other ridiculous measures to supposedly fix any problems of theirs. The undertones of the cult of domesticity are utilized to emphasize how belittled and ignored women are. She demonstrates how the restriction the narrator undergoes causes her to lose her sanity because of measures society deems normal. What is meant to make the narrator better ultimately is what drives her insane, and through this Gilman advocates feminism and a sense of gender equality.…

    • 2126 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper
    • 913 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Yellow Wallpaper

    “The Yellow Wallpaper” excellently portrays the subordinate standing of women in marriage in the 19th century. (Ardoin) When the protagonist begins to deteriorate mentally after giving birth to her child, her physician husband orders her to rest in bed and refrain from writing. The protagonist describes her husband John’s antidote for her ailing health: “I take phosphates or phosphites — whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do? I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal--having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition. I sometimes fancy that in…

    • 913 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper: The Women's Rights Movement?
    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Yellow Wallpaper: The Women's Rights Movement?

    Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written at a very controversial time period: the women’s rights movement. While this book serves as a predominant feminist text, it clearly outlines the voices of changing ideals. As written by literary analyst Jurgen Wolter in ““The Yellow Wallpaper” The Ambivalence of Changing Discourses,” the text has been “approached from various other perspectives, ranging from biographical, deconstructive, reader's response, genre studies.” In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” there are three main points of discussion: gender roles of society at the time, symbolism of the wallpaper, and the results of the changing values. All of these factors contribute to the actions of the character and the changes that she experiences.…

    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Anaylsis of the Yellow Wallpaper
    • 2132 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Anaylsis of the Yellow Wallpaper

    After studying and interpreting Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, I am able to make the hypothesis that Gillman uses the yellow wallpaper to expose oppression against women living in patriarchal society in the 19th Century. The short story is written based on Gillman’s own life when she underwent “nervous prostration” after the birth of her daughter. Gillman allows her readers to understand the perspective of a female in the 19th century and how her role in society resulted in insanity. Feminist literacy critics Ed. Janet Witalec “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1) and Rena Korb, "An overview of 'The Yellow Wallpaper'" (2) both support my hypothesis. They analyze the behaviour and environment of the narrator in relation to this period of time. This woman who is suffering from nervous depression narrates “The Yellow Wallpaper”. She is married to a doctor, who controls her life. Through patronising and bombarding her with ideas that she must feel, her husband demands that she must not write. He claims her creative activities will only make her more “nervous” and “crazy”, although the narrator found great joy in writing. She keeps a secret journal of which she describes the yellow wallpaper and the environment that she lives in. Her journal gives the readers an insight to her perspective on life as an oppressed woman in the 19th Century. Witalec and Korb use a feminist lens to express their opinions on the short story, which support my hypothesis.…

    • 2132 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Rest Cure
    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Rest Cure

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman (b. 3 July 1860) was the ultimate role model for generations of feminists because of all of her amazing accomplishments. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Gilman was the dominant women American sociologist, novelist, and poet. Her most famous piece, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” was published in 1892. In this work, Gilman describes the struggles women had to deal with because of the roles that men had given to them. The story is about a woman suffering from mental illness whom is kept in a closeted room by her husband because of her health. The protagonist must listen to her husband whom is also the doctor even though his treatment is contrasting to what she truly needs. The treatment is called “Rest Cure” and the main point of it is to isolate the women with complete rest and forced feeding. Gilman believed that “Rest Cure” was truly ineffective, and the protagonist actually just needed mental stimulation and the freedom to not be confined to this small room.…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More

Related Topics