Gender Role In The Yellow Wallpaper

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story that presents two people trapped in their gender roles as a wife (the narrator), who is frustrated because she cannot express her thoughts, and her doctor husband, who does not know how to help her.   The narrator accepts society’s gender role, so she struggles to express her thoughts and feelings. Her struggle leads to writing in a journal, which she does “in spite of them” (648). She “[must] be so sly about it, or meet with heavy opposition” because of her husband’s disapproval (648).

  The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman can by read in many different ways.  Some think of it as a tragic horror story while others may find it to be a tale of a woman trying to find her identity in a male-dominated society.  The story is based on an episode in Gilman's life when she suffered from a nervous disease called melancholia.  A male specialist advised her to "live a domestic a life as far as possible.. and never to touch a pen, brush or pencil..."   (Gilman, 669).   She lived by these guidelines for three months until she came close to suffering from a nervous breakdown.  Gilman then decided to continue writing, despite the physicians advice, and overcame her illness.

The Yellow Wallpaper is a story, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Although the work is short, it is one of the most interesting works in existence. Gilman uses literary techniques very well. The symbolism of The Yellow Wall-Paper, can be seen and employed after some thought and make sense immediately. The views and ideals of society are often found in literary works. Whether the author is trying to show the ills of society of merely telling a story, culture is woven onto the words.

and "gates that lock". At the top of the stairs is a gate that keeps

Contemporary society only recently changed so that women are no longer subservient to the men in their life. This now backwards way of thinking was enforced in many cultures around the globe for hundreds of years. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles, the role of a woman in the early 1900s is illustrated as submissive to the men around them. Both the literary works demonstrate the expected role for a woman in marriage and the limiting cage that this relationship can bring about. However, both works also show how the women have their own acts of defiance that can lead to their liberation.

The issue regarding women's rights is not a new one. In the past there were distinctive differences between women's roles and men's roles. Women in the late 1800s were seen as a minority and not as superior as men were. These struggles were portrayed in many sources. In the Heinz and Lux Soap ads it is shown through demonstrating women as the person who does all the cooking and cleaning.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is about a creative woman whose talents are suppressed by her dominant husband. His efforts to oppress her in order to keep her within society's norms of what a wife is supposed to act like, only lead to her mental destruction. He is more concerned with societal norms than the mental health of his wife. In trying to become independent and overcome her own suppressed thoughts, and her husbands false diagnosis of her; she loses her sanity. One way the story illustrates his dominance is by the way he, a well-know and

It does not take the form of the traditional symbol of security for the domestic

the time. Women were seen as inherently fragile, and subject to specific conditions due to this fragility

"The Yellow Wallpaper" motivated the female mind of creativity and mental strength through a patriarchal order of created gender roles and male power during the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. While John represented characteristics of a typical male of his time, the yellow wallpaper represented a controlling patriarchal society; a sin of inequality that a righteous traitor needed to challenge and win. As the wallpaper deteriorates, so does the suppressing effect that male hierarchy imposed on women. Male belief in their own hierarchy was not deteriorating. Females began to think out of line, be aware of their suppression, and fight patriarchal rule. The progression of the yellow

Gender inequality is an issue that has been relevant throughout our history yet only became a true fight near the start of the 20th century. Men and women have different roles that they are forced to play in society. Men are seen as the money maker in the family, and women are seen as the homemaker with a less important role. Men were respected and seen as superior to women. The fight for gender equality has challenged these traditional roles that have been assigned. The roles that women play in society have changed now in the 21st Century, but not without a little help. Influential writers such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman and John Steinbeck have helped pave the way for equal right through their powerful literature. Gilman and Steinbeck

One of the most interesting stories I read in high school literature class was The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Gilman, which tells of a woman suffering from post-partum depression who is kept essentially prisoner in her own home by her dominating husband. Overtime, the woman begins to see figures and shapes in the walls, which later transform into another woman trapped behind the wallpaper. She vehemently believes in this hallucination to the point where she rips up the walls to allow the trapped woman to escape. Although the story has deeper elements of female oppression, the hallucinations she experiences sound incredibly similar to the “prisoners’ cinema” described in Oliver Sacks’ Hallucinations. The students subjected to the sensory

When “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written women and men were not viewed as equals in society. The historical context of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is revealed through minor characters in the short story and what they do. John, the narrator’s husband is a physician; in addition, the narrator’s unnamed brother is also a physician. In contrast Jennie, the narrator’s sister-in-law is a housekeeper and takes care of the narrator, during her stay at the house. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” it is revealed that gender roles played a major role in society; gender roles were an actual issue before the 1800’s; and there are also critical essays to support that gender roles do play a part in “The Yellow Wallpaper”.

The short story, the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman can be analyzed in depth by both the psycho-analytic theory and the feminist theory. On one hand the reader witnesses the mind of a woman who travels the road from sanity to insanity to suicide “caused” by the wallpaper she grows to despise in her bedroom. On the other hand, the reader gets a vivid picture of a woman’s place in 1911 and how she was treated when dealing what we now term as post-partum depression. The woman I met in this story was constantly watched and controlled by her husband to such an extreme that she eventually becomes pychootic and plots to make her escape.

Gender roles were strictly enforced for many centuries, specifically in the nineteenth century. Women and men were to act different ways from each other and it was social taboo to break out of these roles back in the day. All different forms of media from previous eras express this. In different forms of literature such as Kate Chopin’s short piece, “The Story of An Hour”, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Both writers have lived within the nineteenth century, and have written stories reflecting gender roles and regulations of peoples within the time period. Kate Chopin is seen as a feminist in her time period, and her writing was not allowed to be published for a very long time. While Charlotte Perkins Gilman was one to write about women and their roles in the society in which she belonged to. Both writers had used what they knew from their lives to write what they have written. Each story displays how men and women are written in the stories, reflecting upon time periods and the time period . Both of these stories display gender roles, as well as the main women of each story anticipating their own forms of freedom.