Yellow Wallpaper Oppression

Eventually, we realize that the woman in the wallpaper is the narrator. Throughout the story, the narrator 's mental state continues to deteriorate. Being both the narrator 's husband and physician, John assumes that he knows what’s best for his wife. However, in this essay, I will argue that Gilman portrays John as an antagonist or “villain” in her story because, through his actions, he is the main reason for his wife 's descent into insanity which proves that he didn’t know what was best for his wife after all.

Essentially, it is the physical and subsequent metaphorical entrapment of the female protagonist by her husband in The Yellow Wallpaper that leads to a loss of her identity. In addition to physical descriptions, a sense of identity can be established through the delivery of relationships with others, and moral beliefs. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the interplay of characters plays a key role in defining the narrator’s identity through the imbalance of power in her marriage with John. Gilman arguably presents the narrator’s descent into madness through her inability to create a new identity counter to John’s entrapment of her.

Here, Beloved’s captivating power mirrors that of slavery. Just like in his earlier life, Paul D feels humiliated by his fundamental lack of power or control, and he is unable to appear strong or masculine even to the woman he loves. Paul D also recognizes that it is not Beloved’s sexual allure in itself that is so devastating, but the oppressive institution of her power as a whole. Furthermore, he brings up the idea that her superficial image of a “sweet young girl” is deceptive, and that it hides something more sinister (149). At the climax of her novel, Morrison employs similar imagery to emphasize this captivating, disturbing energy that Beloved conceals through her appearance.

The house is in a super-isolated place. The house represents the narrator 's personal emotions; restricted and isolation. In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the symbolism of the the wallpaper and the diary demonstrate the psychological difficulties, that were caused by being disrespected and thought less of, during the 19th century for women across the United States. In the “Yellow Wallpaper”, the woman 's husband John neglects her symptoms of postpartum and says she has a slight hysterical tendency.

She shines a harsh light on the ill reality of society in this time period. There are different kinds of prisons. Gender roles, mental illness, and struggles with identity can all be something that hold people back and hinder their abilities. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a woman who is treated like she is inferior to her husband, John. He does not think she is smart or

Perkins implies that the ill treatment John gives to his wife is not related to her sickness, but rather, it is because of the culture which despises women and treats them like children. That is why he speaks to Jane as he would a child besides calling her his “little girl.” The reader can see how the treatment of the narrator by her husband and society has adverse effects on the woman. Even when she challenges her husband’s treatment, some part of her still makes her believe that by being a woman, she has to listen to the john, who is the authority, a doctor and the one in authority. In a way, the society makes it impossible for the women to think and act for themselves because they believe that they cannot do anything

She suffers from psychological abuse, due to the way she is treated by her father and Hamlet himself. This is also due to her gender, as women weren’t valued in her time, or the time when the play was created. Some symptoms that prove she is a victim of such abuse are things such as her need for Hamlet and her father’s approval. She essentially breaks herself in order to please them both, because as a woman she is objectified and doesn’t realize that she doesn’t have to live her life just to please others. Mary Pipher, who wrote “Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls”, states that “"As a girl, Ophelia is happy and free, but with adolescence she loses herself.

(Plath, 1971, p. 237). Despite reassuring Buddy that her illness and Joan’s suicide had nothing to do with him, he was definitely affected by her situation. Arguably, so was Joan, as Joan at least pretended that she exhibited symptoms at first so that she could be put in the same private mental health clinic as Esther. Esther’s depression also brought shame and insecurity to her

Plath’s poetry, looking particularly at her ‘Collected Poems’, illustrates the consequential disorientation and loss of identity caused by such patriarchal dominance, demonstrating sentiments of disgust as she is forced to adopt certain gender stereotypes in ‘Morning Song’ (1961). She treats female characteristics as manufactured in ‘The Applicant’ (1962), drawing upon the socially constructed role of the housewife, refusing to accept the popular contemporary notion that women are naturally inferior. Although such beliefs appear to lead Plath into a state of individual futility, her satirical approach to stereotypes as naïve social constructions suggests her more complex understanding of the human condition. This unique outlook upon her domestication allows Plath to establish an individual poetic perspective, ascertaining herself to later become an advocate for the second feminist movement. Plath’s description of 1960’s women as domesticized “living [dolls]” in ‘The Applicant’ iterates both her

Morrison has vividly justified the white ideological oppression and how Pecola internalizes and manipulates it. The novel has the vigor of relating the incidents precisely to draw analogy between the ambivalent aspects of black temperament. Pecola gets ignored by the white folk which is quite fathomable, but the anger and dislike shown to her by her mother (and a sweet attitude towards the white child) is puzzling and problematic. Morrison through a post-modernistic stance problematizes the concept of black identity through the ambivalent attitude of Breedlove family. Mrs. Breedlove finds a reflection of her own in Pecola which is “ugly” not only for others but for her also.

Isolation is a dangerous thing. It can push us into thinking very pessimistically, which can lead us into doing harmful actions. As Miguel de Unamuno once said, “isolation is the worst possible counselor.” In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper the narrator is portrayed as psychotic as a result of solidarity; this shows us the dangerous effects of complete isolation.

For a person who almost was physically and mentally destroyed by S. Weir Mitchell’s “resting cure” for depression, it is not surprising that Gilman structured her story as an attack on this ineffective and cruel course of treatment. Gilman knew that at some point in the reader’s lives’ they too have experienced the feeling of being over powered something or someone. Gilman was maybe hoping on the fact that the readers would know a little something about claustrophobia or resentment, so that you can sympathize with the narrator of this short story in her slow spiral to insanity. I believe Gilman was not trying to create of form of clinical study of insanity but instead to feel every crawling inch of craziness. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is an illustration of the way a mind that is already infected with anxiety can deteriorate and begin to prey on itself when it is forced into inactivity and kept from healthy work.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a short story that deals with the concepts of gender difference and madness. The narrator in the story is a ‘bad’ and ‘unsuccessful’ woman and is also mentally-ill. Gilman criticizes the mainstream opinions regarding those concepts using symbolism and imagery. Gilman uses imagery and symbolism when describing the windows and the wallpaper, which helps the reader better understand the differences between ‘normal’ people’s outlook and the one of an insane person, such as the narrator. The windows are a symbol of the way most people, according to Gilman, view the world.

I almost wonder if Gilman was trying to speak out facetiously through the story about how mistreatment of the mentally ill is a phenomenon that will continue to take place in the future. Furthermore, Jane was ill, and having been mistreated in her circumstance only made her existing condition and also the unpleasant topic for me worse. Looking at this story with Feminist theory in mind would be fitting, as her husband dismissed her voiced needs because he believed he knew what was best for her and she did not. I interpret this selection of text as sexism; though I’m sure he loved her very much, he was still controlling and believed she couldn’t think for herself for she was a woman.

The main point of Ernest Jones’ article “ Tragedy and the Mind of the Infant” is that Hamlet is in love with his mother. He roots Hamlet 's misogyny in Gertrude and Ophelia rejecting him sexually. “When sexual repression is highly pronounced,