Position of Women in the 19th-Century Society - Essay Example

Women were under the rule and authority of men as they had no power to do things according to their own accord, but their role was to be completely submissive to the men. Fortunately, the emergence of feminism and equal opportunities for women advocacies in society has seen the role of women change drastically over the years.
The woman at the center of A Doll’s House story is Nora, who experiences severe subjugation from the husband, and initially the father. Nora is a naïve, submissive, and not-so-intelligent woman who plays the role of the desired wife in the 19th century. Analyzing the story closely shows that she has developed these characters and accepted the identity given to her by both the husband and the father. The husband controls every aspect of her life from calling the names that make her seem more like a pest than a wife, to dictate what she should eat and what she should not such as sweets (Ibsen). Moreover, the husband treats her like a child and punishes her for tiny silly mistakes. This goes a long way to show how Nora is powerless in her own home, which resonates with the position of women in the wider society. With her character, she also has accepted the roles forced on her, and all she does is entertain and accommodate her demanding husband, even though she does this nervously.
Similarly, the story of The Yellow Wallpaper presents a woman whose husband has been locked in a secluded room with the excuse that she has a condition, which he refers to as a temporary nervous depression. In normal circumstances, a person who has such a mental condition would be taken to the hospital for medical intervention. However, in this situation, the woman’s husband subjects her to seclusion in an upstairs bedroom, and he goes ahead to make sure that she does not have access to other rooms in the house. This presents a case of subjugation of women whereby the husband makes selfish decisions on their behalf, and they have no choice, but to accept. Through this seclusion and isolation, the husband denies her several rights such as the right to interact with society, be with her children, and perform motherly duties. Furthermore, the woman accepts her situation and becomes obsessed with being inside this room. Towards the end of the story, she even freaks at the idea of getting out of this bedroom as she feels that this is the only place she can be safe. She clarifies this by saying, “But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way” (Woolf 2552).
Finally, the story The Lady in the Looking Glass portrays the treatment of women in society from a different perspective. In this story, the woman is considered abnormal or an outcast from society because of the direction she has chosen in life. For instance, she is an unmarried, independent woman, but the author described her life as incomplete. For example, as the narrator takes us back to the house where Isabella finds her letters, she feels that she is a true woman (Gilman). However, in her character the narrator finds nothing, and thus, she concludes that the beautiful woman in a lovely house and leading an exciting life is nothing, but an empty woman. This story reflects how women unmarried women in society especially in the 19th century and beyond were regarded. For instance, they may have everything such as wealth, a good, house, exciting life, but by the virtue of not being married, they are considered incomplete and even abnormal. This identification goes without regard to the feelings of a woman in question whether she is comfortable with her single and independent nature or not.
In conclusion, the three stories reflect on how 19th-century women were treated mainly by their husbands and society as a whole. A Doll’s House and The Yellow Wallpaper show the forced submission of women as dictated by the society around them. In The Lady in the Looking Glass, we learn how women who had everything they desire in life but remained unmarried were labeled incomplete, empty, and abnormal. Read More