Yellow wallpaper

Submitted By ivylam12
Words: 1023
Pages: 5

Married Women were in Jail When men are to be versus against women, who do you think the winner will be? Do you think women are treated fairly in our modern society? Let’s take a step back and look into our history, how do you think women were treated? Have we, women, done anything wrong that we deserved all those sufferings? In the story—“The Yellow Wallpaper”, the writer directly portrayed the harsh, difficult life of women in the early 20th century. Through the insane women, the author reveals how women were trapped by the structure of marriage and society and how they were oppressed by their husband. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story written in the late 19th century by Charlotte Perkens Gilman. It is written in the 1st person narration, where the narrator herself is the main character of the story—a typical unlucky woman. The story starts with the narrator, who was brought to a mansion far from the cities by her doctor husband, John, to have their “summer vacation”. The narrator was suffering from a nervous depression, and the main reason for her vacation is to fulfill her treatment requirement—doing nothing but purely rest, which gradually drives the writer insane. In the story, the narrator is completely passive; she has no choice of her own life, any rights to refuse her husband’s order and the courage to fight against his domination. Every time the narrator tells her husband what she really wants, he will immediately stops her with a look, or a sentence. For instance, when the narrator wants John to repaper the room, John directly refuses her by saying that the place is doing her “good”, and he “don’t care to renovate the house just for a 3 month’s rental”. Furthermore, when the narrator suggests to leave the house early, John refuse by saying that he “can’t see the reason to leave early”. Though the narrator wants to continue the conversation, she dares not, because “John sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say another word.” All these show that the narrator has no choice, but to accept what John has planned for her. The narrator’s husband seems to love her so much. But his “love” was responsible for the breaking down of the woman, and that proves John has expressed his love in a completely wrong direction. John does not only dominate his wife’s life by using his power as a doctor, but also as a husband. Every time the narrator talks about what she really wants, John silences her and makes her act according to his own will. For example, when the narrator requests to leave the house, her husband refuses and her that she will “never for one moment let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fantasy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?” This stops the narrator from ever talking about it anymore. With the husband’s domination, she gradually sinks into her own imagination and loses touch with the reality. When she was kept in her own room, she is particularly disturbed by the yellow wallpaper. She thinks and writes about it all the time and it becomes her only entertainment. She finds the pattern of the wallpaper interesting, she looks into it day and night, and eventually her imaginations begin to grows. Every refusal and ignorance of her husband deepens her obsession, and the patterns of the wallpaper become clearer. At first, she was addicted to the pattern only, but then smells evolved and she starts to see a woman appear inside the wallpaper. At the end, she suspects that John and Jennie has found her “secrets” about the wallpaper. In order to keep them away from the trapped woman who was struggling inside the cage, she tears the paper apart and frees the woman. At that point, the writer is hopelessly insane.