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Similarities Between The Yellow Wallpaper And Trifles

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Susan Glaspell’s Trifles are both works written by American writers approximately one hundred years ago. They both share the theme of loneliness and feminine domination with the lack of expression and freedom women had in the old days. It is believed that this deficiency caused them mental and emotional problems. On the other hand, both of these writers experienced the fact that the women did not have any rights or any valid feedback to support society. Women were both prisoners and death victims in life with no options but to do everything their husband said. The life of the women was really hard, and they suffered during that time period, which could be shown as evidence by the …show more content…

“The yellow wallpaper’’ and Trifles The women are controlled by their husbands. “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator expressed how the women requested assistance from their husband about their health conditions, whom in turn advised them what the best solution was for everything they were living through. In this case, the husband thought everything he said was right just because he was a physician. His planned was to rent a house for her to stay a while until her got better from her depression; however, his wife response was in disagreement to his plan, which concluded with “I disagree with their ideas. (Gilman,548). From the narrator’s point of view, the wife tried to convince her husband that his thoughts and plan was not the best solution in dealing with her so-called depression. The husband would not pay attention to her and her requests and concerns as related to her emotional state but, she would always respond in a submissive manner. This was the culture and viewpoint that was expected from women during that period of time. If man is submissive to God then women should be submissive to …show more content…

“The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator expressed how she was manipulated by her husband throughout her life as a married woman. Also, in that case, she had to be submissive to her husband’s beliefs that were supposedly good for her. For instance, she stated that her husband said to her “you know the place is doing you good” (Gilman,550). From just that one example, it showed what the husband thoughts and actions held her as a prisoner from being able to act on her own decisions. In the Trifles, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale both reached the same conclusion and stated that Mr. Wright was a good man. (Glasbell,108). He always presented his character in an exemplary fashion by displaying good behavior, working for a living, not indulge in alcohol, and being responsible for paying his household bills. However, he was very firm with his wife by not letting her have some space to breath. Also, during that timeframe, it was probable the status quo on how husbands treated their wives inside the family households, and they did not present their family business in the streets. So, no one knew what was going on within each family. In addition, women continued to stay marriage for many years because pressures asserted by

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“Trifles” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” are early 20th century short stories that depict women’s suppressive role in society and the belief that women should be treated as subservient and substandard to men. Authors Susan Glaspell (“Trifles”) and Charlotte Anna Gilman (“The Yellow Wallpaper”) are both known for advocating feminism in their works of literature. “Trifles” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” exploit patriarchal dominance and its effect on suppressing women’s intellectual and societal equality. In each short story, the woman protagonist is depicted as trapped in her marriage.

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982 Words | 4 Pages

Elizabeth Cady Stanton once stated, “the best protection any woman can have…is courage.” Throughout history, women have had a difficult time expressing themselves and struggled finding help from society, often finding that help within themselves or other women like them. “Woman Hollering Creek,” by Sandra Cisneros, tells the story of a woman who is trapped in an abusive relationship and is capable of escaping while “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story of a woman confined by her own husband, society, and to a room in which she is unable to escape. Although being distinct from one another, Cisneros’ “Woman Hollering Creek” and Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” both use symbolism, metaphors, and dramatic irony to demonstrate

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193 Words | 1 Pages

The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a wife and a mother who suffers symptoms of depression and anxiety. Although she does not believe that anything is wrong with her, John who is her physician husband makes her in the “rest cure”. Also, while she was isolated in the nursery in the rented summer home, the narrator is banned to write or do any creative activities. The narrator severely wants to make her husband happy and accept her role as an ideal mother and wife, but she could not satisfy her husband’s needs with her passion to show her creativity. While trying to achieve John’s wishes for the best, the narrator writes in her journal that peace from her extreme loneliness and inaction.

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624 Words | 3 Pages

“The Yellow Wall-paper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s and “A Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner are both short stories in which both female characters share an unstable psychological condition. In each story, the female character loves their husbands but is oppressed by them in their role of being a stereotypical woman. In the early eighteen and nineteen hundreds, females were expected to become dependent on men for their livelihood, which at the times lead to depression and hysteria of being a submissive female. The male characters were seen as being inferior between the women.

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706 Words | 3 Pages

The story "The yellow wall-paper" briefly described the theme of gender inequality by telling us how did a normal female patient become crazy. In this story, the narrator has to follow the decisions which are all made by his husband, this makes her felt confusing and upset. Her husband has never listened to her ideas because he thinks that she has already had some kind of mental disease. The gender inequality problem and the conflicts come with it directly caused the madness of the narrator. Meanwhile, the conflicts between the narrator and herself, like she always tells herself that “John is professional in curing patients, he must be right”, and also the conflict between her husband and herself, like John often ignores her feelings, both perfectly illustrate the idea of “gender inequality”.

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149 Words | 1 Pages

In the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, the husband seems to takes "good" care of the narrator, the spouse who suffers from nervous breakdown. The narrator willingly obeys her husband, just like a child in a kindergarten. Their life is similar to the yellow wallpaper, a common decoration with its warm, bright, and cheery color, representing the norm of the middle class people. However, beneath the peace and calmness of life lie the contradictions and conflicts. The yellow wallpaper indeed reveals the weird but calm relationship between the narrator and her husband.

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518 Words | 3 Pages

The Yellow Wallpaper was written by a woman named Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who during the late 1800’s to early 1900’s was a famous writer and strived to change social standards for women through her writing. She started writing after having left her husband after suffering from a nervous breakdown and needing a job to support herself after she moved to California in 1890. Her experiences with having to support herself as single women in a society that repressed women’s rights are what drove her to write some of her most famous books and short stories. She wrote The Yellow wallpaper and Women and Economics which dealt with teaching the public about women’s health issues and financial independence are just some of the many short stories and books she wrote to help bring social awareness to women’s oppression from society's standards. She used her own life as her inspiration

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814 Words | 4 Pages

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the story of a young wife as she visits their vacation home with her husband. The story is written in a journal form from the wife’s perspective which includes her interactions with the people around her and gives insights to her thoughts and true opinions about others. The story develops the characterization of the wife as she ascends to madness depicted through her actions which contrasts from the beginning to the ending of the story. Gilman uses the description of the narrator’s experiences to convey how women were treated during the treatment of mental illness in late 19th century. Gilman uses the characterization of the husband to portray the inequality of women in marriage in the

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1038 Words | 5 Pages

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wall-Paper draws her audience into a woman’s mental degradation in order to discuss the faults in current treatment for mental distress and the overarching treatment of women at the time. Her husband is her physician, allowing their interactions to be interpreted as both gender based and medically based. Within the story, the narrator is fixated on the wall paper of her bedroom and it leads to an extended analogy for the women and the cultural rules women must follow. The identity of the narrator is never revealed, likely to elicit additional empathy and maintain that the story is not necessarily unique to a single woman.

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507 Words | 3 Pages

Being energetic was her main role of being the wife for all 5 marriages. The wife of course had an instrument she would use very much so often that kept her husbands entertained by. Treating her husbands in such manner of not allowing their affections to be moved by her, had made the wife’s marriages easy to move on from. The wife was very forceful which made her marriages easy to be controlled by her. And the wife made things her way had been to only do what she had thought was best for her and her husbands.

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747 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout history, race and sex had always been topics of discussion among people, and many have been poorly treated based on their color and sex rather than their actions. The Yellow Wallpaper is not an exception to this, as describes the oppression society gives to women around the Victorian Era. The narrator, who is never truly mentioned by name, has been trapped on the top floor of a mansion in a nursery-like room where she can only sleep and eat. She keeps a journal around and writes down whenever she is alone to prevent her husband from taking her only source of entertainment away since at the time women could not write nor be smarter than men. John believes, because he is the best physician in the county, that he knows exactly what

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2178 Words | 9 Pages

This parallels the expectations of a wife also shown in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In the end, neither woman is able to find the agency and autonomy needed to live successful and fulfilled

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1543 Words | 7 Pages

The futility of life and the inevitability of death asserted itself strongly in the minds of the people, and as a result, the male ego started crumbling under the pressure. As a boost, the rights and assertions of the women started getting ignored, and the male section of the society began to once again, take

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1155 Words | 5 Pages

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a first-person written feminist short story that critiques and condemns the nineteenth-century American male attitude towards women and their physical as well as mental health issues. In the short story, Perkins Gilman juxtaposes universal gender perspectives of women with hysterical tendencies using the effects of gradually accumulating levels of solitary confinement; a haunted house, nursery, and the yellow wallpaper to highlight the American culture of inherited oblivious misogyny and promote the equality of sexes. The narrator and her husband, John, embody the general man and woman of the nineteenth century. John, like the narrator’s brother and most men, is “a physician of high

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1138 Words | 5 Pages

Women were either prostitutes or housewives; they were expected to do no other work. They were actually helpless and had no other option. So in all it is clear that society was very conservative and even corrupt. Moreover they had no issues of their husbands went to prostitutes in

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