The Deteriorating Wallpaper Essays - Medicine, Fiction,

Victoria Sanson Dr. Somers ENGL 254 6 October 2017 The Deteriorating Wallpaper Strong, determine, intelligent, confident, and hard working . These are not some of the words that were used to describe women during the 19th century . During the nineteenth century, women were viewed as homemakers, not able to perform in society with men . They were degraded by men to believe that they were worth almost nothing, only worthy of bearing children and was viewed as property . This superfluous male domination lead to many women feeling trapped in their own homes, unable to escape from the confinements placed on them by their husbands . An illumination of these confines was accounted by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in her short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" . In this story, Gilman portrays a woman who is suffering from post-partum depression . The woman is locked away from society in a confined room, only to drive herself even more insane . The author uses this nameless narrator in attempts to gain her position against gender issues and break down the bar riers of male domination . Throughout "The Yellow Wallpaper", Gilman challenges the reader to question feminist stances and gender boundaries of the 19th century using the dynamic of the narrator and her husband's marriage, the idea of a rest cure, and the societal norms of the 19th century . Women in the 19th century had many reasons to be filled with resentment . They were deprived of many human rights and given little in return for their contributions to society . They worked mostly in the home, taking care of the family while their husbands were at work . Women were not considered able to perform tasks in the workplace, and were not able to obtain their own careers . The author recognizes these hardships and relates them to the situation in the story . Gilman writes in a way that is extremely structural that the reader's visual senses are captivated by the written text and infer that the narrator is growing increasingly insane . The social norms of the 19th century were that men were considered superior to women in all ways . Dr. Graham Warder states, "In a world of strict patriarchy, men controlled not only the wealth and political power but also how their children were raised, religious question, and all matters of right and wrong" . I believe this means that the wife/mother of the families had no say in what they wanted for their children and had to agree with their husbands even if the wives their own opinions . In the story, the narrator describes herself as the opposite of the normal wife and mother of the 19th century and how John's sister is what everyone expects a new mother to be like . In the story, the narrator writes in her journal that Mary "is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession" (536) . I believe that Gilman is saying that just because she did not fit what was the social norm of her generation, people (including her husband and family) tho ught that she must have had some illness and that with medication she would "get better" and become a "normal wife and mother" . In the short story The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator's husband, John, is a physician and in this time period "if a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency - what is one to do?" (533) . In the 19th century, women did not have a say in their own health because if the husband said that their wife was mentally ill then the physician would believe the husband over the actual patient . The narrator also states that according to her husband she is "absolutely forbidden to work' until I am well"(533) . She also disagrees with his ideas and "believes that congenial work, with excitement and change" (533) would do her good, but she cannot do anything about it . The narrator has no voice in her own health care because of the social norms of the