The theme of resistance to social norms - Essay Example

By examining how she wrote about the theme of female subjugation behind a male-dominated conception, Charlotte Perkins Gilman demonstrated how the non-conforming female character has no choice but to fail. The woman protagonist, who never provides her name, is instructed to remain isolated in an upper room of a remote country house, which she does although reluctantly. As she confides to the reader, she actually felt that another room might be better for her, but this idea was overruled by her solicitous and educated husband and doctor as he continues to put his own desires first.

“I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! but John would not hear of it. He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another.” The room she is placed in is thought to have originally been a nursery, with bars on the windows and old faded yellow wallpaper attached to the walls. This association only serves to highlight her helpless position within the house, particularly as she mentions, even very early in the story, “He [John] is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.

I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me.” Through the course of the story, the woman transforms from an individual who adores the outside and green growing things expressing thoughts and feelings of her own to the horrifying and creeping artificial creation of man as he has shaped her. The idea of the perfect woman is reinforced in The Yellow Wallpaper in the characters of Mary and Jenny, who collectively replace the narrator in her own home, indicating the easy interchangeability of women within this society.

“It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby” is the only information we’re given of this ideal of