Wallpaper Double Standards

Although tender and caring, John played a significant role in causing the narrator’s descent into ‘madness’. By taking on the role of a physician and a husband, John symbolises the stronghold power men had over women in the past. Instead of respecting his wife’s request for some form of mental stimulation, John insists that she takes on the ‘rest’ treatment. The treatment only focuses on the physical condition of the patient, and not the emotional or mental

“In one of the articles, John is a perfect example of a commanding mate, a husband who holds absolute power over his wife. He treats her as an minor, as seen here: “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.” John sees his wife’s feelings as laughable, never taking them seriously until it is too late. It is also clear from this statement that John laughs at his wife because it is what is expected by the community. Later, when Jane is qualified to control her own thoughts, his role as a strong, higher ranked husband and leader is switched, and he becomes much like a woman himself: “Now why should that man have fainted?” Having seen his wife in a state of dementia (symbolically, shattering the power he has over her), he faints, much like a woman would be expected to. Due to acceptance of her insanity, Jane has changed the traditional roles of husband

In patriarchal society the woman is expected to be domestic and obey every command of the husband without expressing their own opinions which goes against this particular narrator’s feelings. The first clue about the narrator’s relationship is found when “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage” and he refers to her as “a blessed little goose.” This alone displays the fact that she is not taken seriously in any manner by her husband. In overseeing his wife’s treatment John “takes all care from me” and “is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” therefore taking any sense of control from his wife under the assumption that he knows what’s best for her. In taking any sense of control from his wife, the husband ultimately reduces the wife to the level of a child.

John, the narrator’s controlling, but loving, husband represents the atypical man of the time. He wants his wife to get better and to be able to fill the role of the perfect wife that society expected from her. John, being a doctor, did not quite believe that her mental illness was out of her control and insisted on

He wanted her full, complete recovery to come about in an expedited manner. He obviously was aware of the strain caring for a baby puts upon a lady. Oppressive husbands are more akin to piling all of the burdens of child rearing and house maintenance upon their wives. Here, we have just the opposite. John did everything within his power to relieve the everyday stresses of his beloved wife by acquiring the services of a nanny. His wife was cognizant of this fact, for she plainly states the John loves her dearly, and hates to have her sick (The Norton Anthology, p. 662). The next myth that needs to be dispelled is that of John keeping his wife locked away in the house, thereby causing her to go insane. Feminists would like us to believe that John locked his wife away in a drab, musty cell, forbidding her to venture outside. The story paints a starkly different picture. At the beginning of the story, the character speaks rather fondly of the room, calling it "as airy and comfortable a room as any one need wish" (The Norton Anthology, p. 660). By her utterances here, one can quite easily ascertain that she is indeed comfortable in her new surroundings. The character is also of absolute liberty to explore the rose garden outside at anytime that she wished. This is proven true by two crucial examples from the story. The first is taken from the characters own mouth, from when she

In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman discusses the oppression men have towards women through the story of a nameless narrator during the 19th century. In the story, the unknown narrator, a woman, is telling her struggle for freedom and her fight to escape from the subordination in her marriage with a physician. In the story, the narrator suffers an illness that prevents her from doing things she likes such as writing. Throughout her illness, the narrator slowly becomes aware of her situation and then starts to fight to change her living condition with her husband. Through the use of two major symbols established throughout the text, Gilman brings awareness of women’s struggle to end their oppression by men and their fight to change the way society is dominated by men. In addition, the symbols used by Gilman underline the way women suffrage awareness slowly began to spread during the 19th century.

The author states, “But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself – before him, at least, and that makes me very tired” (Gilman 316). There are also many other examples that show of the husbands rule over the wife, one being, “There comes John, and I must put this away, - he hates to have me write a word” (317). With another example, “John says if I don’t pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall. But I don’t want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so!”

In 1973, The Feminist Press reprinted Charolottes Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” almost having been published for half a century, which Susan S. Lanser believes established the short story as an American feminist classic. Throughout Lanser’s reading of Gilman’s celebrated short story, her comprehension of the meaning has not changed, but only deepened as well as reading many American feminist critics take on it. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, with readings such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” resurfacing amongst all the history this time period was consumed with, made women to finally denounce the ideology of traditional patriarchal literature that had been praised and celebrated even by women. Despite criticism of the newfound feminist

But the location is not necessarily as important as the time of which the story is set and that is in late 19th century America. A time when medicine was still rather coarse and unrefined with treatments coming from doctors who have never truly tested their theories. It is these kinds of treatments that John will administer to his wife without truly knowing what ails her causing her to spiral into a rather abnormal mental state. The late 19th century was still a time when woman had very little say in the world and were still considered inferior to men without the capacity for in-depth rational thought. While the wife knows she is sick and her husband’s treatments won’t help her she knows there is nothing she can say that will convince him

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).

During the Progressive era, before the women’s suffrage movement, women suffered an immense amount of oppression because the simple fact that they were not men. Men held a higher position in society, therefore, they treated women with little to no consideration. Authors such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, and Susan Gaspell spoke fiercely, about the lack of fairness of women’s everyday lives during this time, and encouraged the obliteration of sexism. Although each female author expresses the harsh, barbaric conditions women endured by using the setting of stories displaying themes of confinement, identity, and loneliness, each illustrate these themes with opposing concentrations: “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Perkins introduces a theme

Through the minimal interactions that John has with his wife, he is consistently revealed as a superior and patriarchal figure to the narrator, rather than a romantic partner. The narrator’s trivialization in the marriage is demonstrated at the very beginning of the story when she admits that her husband “John laughs at [her]” then tries to vindicate his insensitivity by saying that “one expects that in marriage” (3). Likewise, she introduces John as someone who is “practical in the extreme..., has no patience with faith...and scoffs openly at

The control he has over his wife’s life is subtle and difficult to understand at first, because the narrator interprets it as “caring”. When he “hardly lets [her] stir without special direction”, his actions seem almost completely loving. Any yet, there is an uneasiness from the beginning that is difficult to place. The fact that all decisions are made by John doesn’t seem particularly caring, even if they were in his wife’s best interests.

Through the minimal interactions that John has with his wife, John is consistently revealed as a superior and patriarchal figure to the narrator-rather than a romantic partner- which results in her subordination within their marriage. The speaker’s trivialization is demonstrated at the very beginning of the story when she admits that her husband “John laughs at [her]” but tries to vindicate him by saying that “one expects that in marriage” (3). Likewise, the speaker introduces John as someone who is “practical in the extreme..., has no patience with faith...and scoffs openly any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures”

Having considered that John has complete control over the protagonist, it is important to note how he affects her life. John prevents the hysterical woman from participating in any intellectual activity; ignoring her desperate need to express herself by writing in her journal. The division of power is very similar to the power that a father has over his daughter (K.Wilson 283). He addresses his wife with childish terms such as “blessed little goose” (Gilman 78), “darling” (83) and “little girl” (83). The hysterical woman describes the room that her husband forced her to stay in to be like a nursery. She is locked in the room much like how a child would be treated during a timeout after misbehaving. John deliberately locking his wife in the nursery “represent[s] nineteenth-century society’s tendency to view women as children” (K.Wilson 283). She clearly isn’t fond of the treatment, but insists it’s what has to be done because that’s what John has told her. She has been brainwashed into following through with the rest cure because her husband prescribed it to her, practically “tak[ing] away her ability to communicate” (Lasmer par.28). When the woman