Women In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

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In the 19th century America, women were regarded as possessions of their husbands in the male-dominated society. They were rather passive in controlling their life. They could hardly have control over their possessions or even their children legally and directly. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, she produces an image of an aspiring woman writer who is striving for the realization of her position in the family as well as in the society in a man-dominated late 19th century. This aim is to encourage women in her era to struggle for their rights and freedom. The relationship between the narrator “I” and her husband John are significant, it stands for the powerlessness and oppression of women at the time. This …show more content…
“I quite enjoy the room, now it is bare again (Gillman 655).” The narrator is disgusted by the wallpaper at first writing that she has never seen uglier and more horrible paper in her life and should hate it if she has to live in that room long. Angry with the impertinence of the wallpaper, saying that the absurd and unblinking eyes are everywhere, the narrator is compelled to study it and then write descriptions about how it appears, down to the smallest detail. She starts examining the wallpaper, noticing how the patterns form the “eye” that seem to be staring at her. Then she sees a woman creeping behind the pattern. The narrator’s mood starts to improve because she now has something which she can look forward to. She no longer wants to leave until she finds out the secret of the wallpaper. “The wallpaper symbolizes every human being´s need to have the freedom and ability to create, write, enjoy nature, breathe fresh air and to do whatever a person is interested in. And it symbolizes also the domestic situation which many 19th-century women found themselves trapped in and could not get out of (Sigurðardóttir 27).” Due to the restrictions back in the time, the narrator wants to free the shadow woman from the wallpaper and overthrow this feudal
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