Comparing The Yellow Wallpaper And The Unicorn In The Garden

Are “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Unicorn in the Garden” short stories about women’s oppression and feminist works? The evidence is clear: both works of literature have deeper meanings behind women’s oppression by men. Both stories contain women that have gone mad thanks to the situations that their men have put them in. “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Unicorn in the Garden” both demonstrate that women can become insane when acted upon by an outside force such as that of man’s oppression. “The Unicorn in the Garden” is a story in that a woman is being oppressed by her husband. The man wants the woman gone. To do this he uses the story of a unicorn being outside in the garden. He makes up this story because he knew if he told his wife enough times she would believe him. This is seen in many

He did this because he wanted to be alone and have her took away (“The Unicorn in the Garden”). “The Yellow Wallpaper” uses symbolism to show how oppression can slowly affect the way one thinks and ultimately lives. The women beings by saying about the wallpaper: “The color is repellent, almost revolting: a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning su night. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others” (“The Yellow Wallpaper”). This could symbolize that this is how she feels about her life. She feels that her life is repellent, unclean, and dull. She feels this way because of her husband John. He told her she was sick, he told her she needed to go away to rest, and he kept her locked up in this room. These things made her actually believe that she was crazy and needed to stay in this room. If he had not made her do these things, she would have continued on with life and been fine physically and mentally. According to “Theses on the Feminist Novel,” “Feminism concerns the equality of women. When I say equality, I mean that women should be able to move through the world with the same ease as men.” John did