StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...

The Yellow Wallpaper: Feminist Viewpoint - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
The Yellow Wallpaper: Feminist Viewpoint The Yellow Wallpaper is a much acclaimed nineteenth century short story authored by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It first appeared in The New England Magazine in 1892. Upon its publication it proved controversial and provocative due to its bold portrayal of women’s sexuality and psychology…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER91.6% of users find it useful
The Yellow Wallpaper: Feminist Viewpoint
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "The Yellow Wallpaper: Feminist Viewpoint"

Download file to see previous pages

In what amounts to a house-arrest by her husband, the woman’s condition steadily descends toward psychosis due to lack of variety and distraction in the bed-room existence. For example, “the character becomes increasingly perplexed by the garish color and the intricate patterns of the wallpaper all around her. She begins to see distorted shapes, eventually identifying a woman trapped behind the paper fighting to get out. The story ends with the narrator's husband discovering his wife maniacally circling the bedroom, surrounded by the tattered shreds of paper she has torn from the walls.

He faints at the sight.” (USA Today, 2010, p.4) The rest of the essay will present the feminist interpretation of this important piece of American women’s literature. During the feminist movement of early twentieth century, many feminist scholars were up in arms against the gross injustice depicted in the story. The inequalities prevalent in patriarchal American society of late nineteenth century is pointed at and criticized. The insensitivity and high-handedness of healthcare professionals, especially psychiatrists, is also highlighted.

Since Gilman drew the material for the story from her own experiences in getting cured of depression, her interaction with the famous nervous diseases specialist Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell is relevant for the discussion. As one of the many physicians who debated ‘the woman question’, he “defended the notion of significant differences between the sexes and argued that an epidemic of neurasthenia, or nervous exhaustion, was rife among women who attempted to exceed their natural limits. He recommended a "rest cure" in which the patient was not allowed to read, write, feed herself, or talk to others--or, as Charlotte described it: "Live as domestic a life as possible .

and never touch pen, brush, or pencil as long as you live."” (USA Today, 2010, p.4) The feminist grievance with respect to the prognosis of the condition lies in the fact that the depressed woman saw recuperation in totally different terms. For example, instead of spending time within the bounds of four walls, she felt an active social life would lift her out of the mental morose. This Charlotte Gilman masterpiece challenges traditional notions about gender that excluded them from mainstream political and intellectual life.

It also questions how medical and scientific experts drew on notions of female weakness to justify inequality between the sexes. In Gilman’s own life, she was discouraged from pursuing a career to preserve her health. Hence the authorial voice is both autobiographical as well as generally representative of women of the era. (Delashmit & Long, 1991, p.32) Gilman lived at a time when society was getting torn by two contradictory ideologies – True Womanhood and Women’s Rights. Through her works (including The Yellow Wallpaper) she firmly sied with the cause of women’s rights.

She “stood for the potentialities of American womanhood and struggled to free herself from true to free woman. As a woman and as an author, she perceptively analyzed the most basic conditions under which -women live out their lives and developed her seminal ideas: the crucial necessity for women to have careers outside the home; the ironclad oppression of patriarchal culture; the

...Download file to see next pages Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“The Yellow Wallpaper: Feminist Viewpoint Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved de https://studentshare.org/english/1440194-the-yellow-wallpaper-feminist-view
(The Yellow Wallpaper: Feminist Viewpoint Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 Words)
https://studentshare.org/english/1440194-the-yellow-wallpaper-feminist-view.
“The Yellow Wallpaper: Feminist Viewpoint Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/english/1440194-the-yellow-wallpaper-feminist-view.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF The Yellow Wallpaper: Feminist Viewpoint

Characters' Multiple Narrative Subjectivities on Conflicting Views of Postmodernism

The two works: - the yellow wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Atonement by Ian McEwen are about women who in their own rights are writers; in the former an older woman while in the latter a young English girl who is a gifted writer.... hellip; It revolves around the personal attachment to persons with the yellow wallpaper depicting a woman whose husband, a physician, has confined her in the bedroom of their house, while in the Atonement it is the young girl's reaction to her sister's admirer, who being a childhood friend of her sister Cecilia, has some attraction towards her....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

The Psychological challanges of Oppressed women in The Yellow Wallpaper

The researcher of this descriptive essay mostly focuses on the discussion of the topic of the psychological challanges of oppressed women in "the yellow wallpaper" and analyzing the issue of the psychological challenges of women in a male dominated society.... The setting of Charlotte's story “the yellow wallpaper” enormously reflects the time period in which the story takes place.... Evidences of Gender Discrimination in Gilman's Story The distorted figure in the yellow wallpaper symbolizes the forced inactivity of women and also the society's view of women's physical fragility....
6 Pages (1500 words) Essay

Irresolvable Tension Between Light and Darkness-- What Does the Tension Reveal and How Does it Work Within the Story

Charlotte Perkins Gilman published the yellow wallpaper in 1899 at a time when respectable women had very few rights, and were firmly controlled in a patriarchal order that gave all the power to fathers and husbands.... the yellow wallpaper symbolizes the pain and madness that comes of oppression, and there is a subtle message in the story, to the effect that the tension can be better managed if the woman is free to come and go as she pleases.... The author uses the play of light and darkness on yellow wallpaper to symbolize the irresolvable tension suffered in the mind of a married woman who is both literally and symbolically trapped in a confined space, and who gradually declines into madness....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Doctors and patients

… COMPARE AND CONTRAST ESSAY (the yellow wallpaper) Name of Student (author) Name of University COMPARE AND CONTRAST ESSAY This brief paper compares two viewpoints of a classic short story which despite brevity, had been entertaining readers over the years.... The other viewpoint in this story is the reaction of her doctor-husband, who took the rather nonchalant view of her ailment and considers her sickness to be the product of imagination only and therefore nothing very serious....
3 Pages (750 words) Essay

Women Authors as a Mirror of Society

Women were expected to remain virtuous and pure, to be modest, devout in their faith, and submissive to their male counterparts (the yellow wallpaper, 2008).... How do the works of women authors reflect society Write a paper in which you answer that question for the period 1865-1912....
3 Pages (750 words) Essay

The Theme of Isolation in Yellow Wallpaper

Feminist author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman is most famously recognized today for her brilliant masterpiece, "the yellow wallpaper.... The narrator in "the yellow wallpaper" spends so much time in her room that she eventually becomes obsessed with this yellow wallpaper.... Gilman also addresses how the narrator is in a little room covered in yellow wallpaper which makes her feel isolated in addition to her madness.... It is these factors; the treatment of herself and women in general, the "rest-cure", the isolation, and the yellow wallpapered room, which eventually drive her to insanity and hysteria....
51 Pages (12750 words) Book Report/Review

The Yellow Wallpaper - Managing the Madness-Mental Illness

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story “the yellow wallpaper”, first published in 1899, a woman slowly loses her sanity as a result of her inability to conform to societal norms.... In the story, John and the protagonist take up residence in an upper room of the house, thought to have once been a nursery, with bars on the windows and old faded yellow wallpaper attached to the walls.... This wallpaper plays a large role in the progression of the woman's illness as she begins to see women creeping around inside it, trying to escape the oppression they, too, have experienced....
5 Pages (1250 words) Research Proposal

Neurosis as a Gendered Disease or a Female Disposition

hellip; Perkins has chosen a neurotic, married woman as the narrator of her text in “the yellow wallpaper.... An author of the essay "Neurosis as a Gendered Disease or a Female Disposition?... reports that the text both persuades and dissuades readers to become addressees through exploring multiple views on gender and neurosis from different reader positions....
6 Pages (1500 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us