Comparing Power In The Yellow Wallpaper And Cathedral

She appears (to the reader’s eyes) to love John in a corrupt, driven-to-insanity way. She sadly “loves” John more than he loves

This superiority blinds John of what is actually going on with the narrator. He believes she is getting better when she is actually becoming much worse. The story is demonstrating how a woman in a marriage was kept to almost a childish standard. She is

First of all, when the narrator is in her room, she sees the woman behind the wallpaper creeping her during the daytime. This shows that she is unreliable because of her mental health problem. This is one the most important part of the story because the woman that she sees represents herself being trapped in the room. Also, her feelings are not stable. In the beginning, she sees John as a person who takes care of her and loves her. However, the later in the story, the narrator seems to

She has internalized John’s authority to the point that she practically hears his voice in her head, telling her what to think. She cannot help but feel the way she does, and so the move she makes at the end—focusing on the house instead of her situation—marks the beginning of her slide into obsession and madness. John is a symbol of her mental illness because it shows his authority over her and how she thinks she is not loved by anyone especially her husband. “His family has gotten into the habit of putting in his room things for which they could not find any other place, and now there were plenty of these, since one of the rooms in the apartment had

John’s domineering personality is seen throughout the story. He denies her choice of bedrooms at their rented home and “hardly lets me stir without special direction.” (Gilman 845) The most profound example of control is shown with

After a while of staying at the house she started to get lazier and rest most of the time. During the day when John and his sister think that the narrator is resting she is actually study the wallpaper in the room. She is starting to feel uneasy in the room once more and wish that John would take her away from the house but John would not listen and he would say that the house was doing her good. The only way that John would leave is if he believe that she was in any

Mrs. John believes John is a loving and caring husband, but the fact that John continues to work for the duration of their stay in the mansion suggests that he has taken Mrs. John there to hide her away while she is ill. Mrs. John’s perceived malady may have been an embarrassment for John. Even Mrs. John believes she needs to give John a break from dealing with her stating, “I meant to be a help for John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!”(Gilman, 381) John in fact does not believe that there is really anything wrong with Mrs. John and stays away from her for long periods of time leaving his sister Jennie to care for her. Mrs. John feels some “congenial work, with excitement and change” and “more society and stimulus” would do her good. John believes those things would be the worst thing for Mrs. John. So in being a good wife Mrs. John just goes against her better judgment and follows John’s orders.

The narrator of the story is forced into a submissive role because she is confined to her room in the mansion and has all her daily needs supervised by John and their housekeeper. The narrator's mental health is not viewed in a serious manner by John, and the narrator is forced to stay away from all forms of excitement, companionship, and writing. John completely disregards his wife's opinions by not allowing her to do anything that she thinks will do herself good because he believes that he knows better. This could be contributed to the fact that the author lived in a time when women were seen as inferior to

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

The way Gilman writes John makes me feel as though he’s talking to a child and not his adult wife as he uses these names in abundance. All in all, Gilman’s narrator appears both conscious and ignorant to her situation. There are many passages that have readers believing she loathes John and wants to leave him, but there are just as many that convince otherwise and that she wants this domestic lifestyle. Ideally free of the rest

As the story progresses, we see John is not straight up evil, and cares deeply for his wife but both of them are part of an unequal relationship where the protagonist cannot be taken seriously. There is also a sense of John treating her as an object, patient or someone he is not familiar with rather than someone he is married to. The last line of the story is very powerful, “Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time! “John indirectly destroys her with his “resting cure” treatment which is the last thing he wants as he displays his reaction by what seems as fainting and not waking up (dying but is not clear in the text).

Despite John’s efforts to repress the narrator’s freedom, her writing in the journal “reveals [her] awareness that John continuously tries to manipulate her” (Suess). This awareness alludes to the fact that the narrator has now come to the realization that she is trapped and so therefore, she must escape. The narrator then “continues to write, move about, and study the wallpaper—thus disobeying John’s strict orders—[revealing] John’s demands to be merely superficial”

Firstly, John, tends to partially solve his problems, then gravitates towards ignoring them, swiping them under the rug or even running from them. For example, when the narrator asks, "Why the house had stood so long untenanted,” (647) John just laughs at his wife instead of answering her and doesn 't stress her question which proves that he’s just letting it go and isn 't going to do anything about it like he does several times during the text. Not only does John ignore his problems, but he also "scoffs openly at any talk.” (652). This means that he doesn’t want to talk about his problems and he would prefer to keep things bottled up then to express how he is really feeling or what 's going on. John also proves that he chooses to run from the majority of his problems and his most important problem being his wife. The narrator says that he is also always "going into town for more serious cases” (650). This shows that he is avoiding confrontation and is finding excuses in which to deal with his problems. John also avoids his problems literally, by not addressing his wife by her real name and instead by calling her names like "my blessed little goose.” (649), and by saying cute lines like "bless her little heart” (652). These names and lines make it so that he doesn’t have to answer her question honestly because he justified it with something kind distracting her from her original point. As it is clear, John chooses a more demeaning and

He will not let her speak about her condition, see her newborn son, go outside, or even move down from the upstairs room. At first, narrator protests this isolation and says that excitement and activity would do her good, but John undermines her and insists on rest. Although John means best for his wife and wants her health to improve he does not understand that he is quickly progressing her neurosis. John tells her she must rest, which means that she is not allowed to write in her journal, but taking this away means taking away her self-expression. She is forced her to keep her thoughts bottled up in her mind.

It is seen when he says “What is it, little girl?” (Gilman 661) after she wakes him from checking out the wallpaper. Her husband comes off loving and caring to most at first glance. However if you study him you can see it is just to gain ground and easily becomes in control. John has basically taken away her right to make decisions on what is best for her wellbeing.