Summary:
The short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is an early and strong voice for feminism. Gilman does a wonderful job bringing together the medical, physical, mental and moral elements of the story to fit one purpose. The husbands neglect, the sister's condescension and the doctor's implied arrogance all play a large role in conveying the message to the reader.
RoseAnn Shannon
ENG 325
Essay # 1: Suppression of Freedom Within a Closed Box
For about as long as people have been around, there has been the relationship of dominator and the dominated. For example, Europeans and Native Americans, Europeans and Africans, along with the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat in Great Britain. There is a common thread connecting all of these dominated groups that eventually brought their suffering to an end, they detested their oppressors and took the needed action to dissolve their power. The only dominator - dominated relationship that has an uncommon characteristic is the one between men and women. The stunted growth of the liberty of women has only been allowed to endure because there is something very peculiar about the relationship between men and women. The women's love of their oppressors makes it difficult for them to take the needed action. There are women who both love men because they care for them, and hate them because they think that they are not capable of caring for themselves. These women who are between the proverbial "rock and a hard place" are the very ones who are among the most vigilant. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mary Wollstonecraft and Virginia Woolf are among those vigilantes. "The Yellow Wallpaper," "a Vindication of the Rights of Woman," and "a Room of One's Own" are all brilliant works that spoke out in a way that would last throughout decades. Even John Stuart Mill, a male feminist, is adamant about writing about the rights that women should have. In the "Subjection of Women," he says that things that appear natural are only customary and that which is customary appears natural. He even applied the same notion to slavery, saying that it was natural for the master to believe he should dominate only because he was in America, in Africa it would be a different story altogether. What if roles were reversed? What if the Europeans were kidnapped and brought to a strange country where they had no family, and the only people they had to rely on were their kidnappers? Would they not rise up and try to free themselves by any means necessary?
All of the above mentioned feminist voices were steadfast about what they wanted and they knew what they had to do. They had to exercise their talents for the uplift of the female gender. Even though the discussion of subjects such as women's rights outside of the home was seen as a controversial subject to write about during their times, but they did not let snide comments, gender discrimination and criticism become an obstacle.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" is an autobiographical story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that shows the vitality of a woman's artistic freedom in addition to what and who can be affected if not gained. In Perkins' work the narrator constantly tries to make her situation seem better than it is. She does not want to blame her husband for anything because he "loves her so" (Gilman 1665). She cannot see her baby and her husband and his sister treat her like an ignorant child who does not know what is going on inside her head or body. If that is not enough, she is not even allowed her one outlet of choice, which she believes will speed her recovery, writing. "There comes John's sister...I must not let her find me writing" (1663). There is freedom in writing; if one is already confined to one's room with barred windows and is on bed rest, and the "caretakers" take away her writing freedom they are opening a door to restlessness and possibly, over an extended amount of time, neurosis. No one, even Doctor Weir Mitchell, who was a famous doctor who specialized in women's mental problems, bothered to look into what could be the roots of the problem. They were living in a time when doctors cured many women's problems with a hysterectomy. They (her husband and Dr. Mitchell) most likely did not consider all areas of her life as possible catalysts for her condition. Her depression could have been caused simply by her reluctant emotional and artistic restraint. She was so overly concerned with being a good wife, mother, and housekeeper that she put her own ambitions far in the back of her mind never to be seen by anyone else.
When the doctor diagnosed the narrator she and her husband went away to a "house" they leased for three months so she could recover. This place was really a facility for mentally ill patients. She did not have the comfort of her child nor did she have the option to write, therefore she found another way to occupy her time. She found a small amount of solace in the memory of the room décor of her old home. "I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big, old bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend" (1663). It seems sad that she would not consider her husband a friend but she would rather look to inanimate objects such as furniture. Her husband could help curb her depression at any point in time if he could see what was so obvious to her, she need to write. He shamelessly treats her as a child, not his wife. He does not even let her walk around, which shows that he does not really care what she wants (which is the root of the problem) and that he is just trying to control her. "What is it little girl?" he said. Don't go walking about like that--you'll get a cold." (1665)
The yellow wallpaper is symbolic of female suppression. Wallpaper is indicative of female because women were usually the decorators of the household, in addition to the maid of the household. Near the beginning she looked at the wallpaper in a way that seemed to convey inspiration. "This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then," (1663) She was able to write, but it was exhausting to keep hiding it every time someone came around the corner.
This work is an early and strong voice for feminism. Gilman does a wonderful job bringing together the medical, physical, mental and moral elements of the story to fit one purpose. The husbands neglect, the sister's condescension and the doctor's implied arrogance all play a large role in conveying the message to the reader. The conclusion makes it seem that the wallpaper was the one thing keeping her in. "'I've got out at last,' said I 'in spite of you and Jane! And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!'" One can see this as a metaphor for changing one's surroundings. Gilman, in her life finally found freedom when she was granted a divorce from her husband on the grounds that "her marriage threatened her sanity."
"It is not that women are really smaller-minded, weaker-minded, more timid and vacillating, but that whosoever, man or woman, lives always in a small, dark place, is always guarded, protected, directed and restrained, will become inevitably narrowed and weakened by it." -Charlotte Perkins Gilman
works cited:
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Lauter, Paul. second edition. Lexington, MASS. D.C. Heath.
This is the complete article, containing 1,230 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page).
