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The Ruined Maid And The Yellow Wallpaper

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It is no secret that men and women are treated differently still to this day. However, during the Victorian Era women were treated with very little respect. They were expected to be homemakers, and not voice their opinions. "The Ruined Maid" by Thomas Hardy and "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Gilman were both written during this time. Even though these stories were written in the same time period, the protagonist thoughts about the Victorian Era were different.

Hardy's "The Ruined Maid" was written in the late 1800s. It's a poem about a woman leaving the farm life for the city life. However, the protagonist in this poem was not a normal woman living in the Victorian Era. She was a prostitute who was "ruined." Unlike most women in the Victorian Era, she did not wait till marriage to have sex. Because of this she was frowned upon in her community. Back then if you were considered a "damaged good" your chances of getting married were very slim. Your family would disown you, and people would treat you very disdainfully. It is sad still to this day that men get praised for the amount of sexual encounters they have, and women get condemned for it. Even though the …show more content…

Even though a lot of good came out of the Victorian Era, they were very disrespectful to women. Reading these make you understand what women had to go through and how far women have come since then. If you were considered ruined during the Victorian Era you were frowned upon very heavily. In some cultures, today it is still frowned upon, but fairly normal for our society. Today women have more of a voice then they did in the early 1800s. Most women are able to voice their opinions, and have control over there bodies. By reading these texts people can understand the madness women had to deal with during the Victorian Era, and hopefully learn from it so that history doesn't repeat its

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman was not just an author but a great feminist. Gillam inspired countless women to seek indecency with her work like "The Yellow Wallpaper. " The story is a fictionalized short story of a woman who is descending into madness while dealing with her mental illness and cannot heal due to her husband 's lack of belief. At the same time, the woman also known as the narrator feels imprisoned in her marriage. The story takes place during a time were women and had no independence and were not able to voice their own opinion.

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The society of that time had ideas and expectations on how women should behave. They were expected to be humble, pure, innocent, good wives and mothers. Furthermore, they were seen as inferior to men in almost every aspect. Feeling himself as a 'misfit ', Hardy was always in a disagreement with editors and critics, thus he had to edit his texts to conform the Victorian Society. In this way, he identified himself with the suppressed classes.

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