The Yellow Wallpaper Analysis

Throughout history and across cultures woman have lived under the parameters of a patriarchal structure. Stories like Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,”, inspired by two cultures (Caribbean and American) and different eras (1983 andvers 1893) reflect women's struggle within this structure. A structure in which women have blazed a trail and have fought for a space, the freedom and the respect within their community (Fix this sentence – it is grammatically incomplete). Despite that women should accept and follow patterns of a pre-established prototype of behavior, that do not allow them to development their intellectual capacities, limiting their professional and social role to wife or housekeeper,

In this regards the mother writes, “this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn’t fall on you” (Kincaid 57). With the objective of overcoming this oppressive patriarchal structure the narrator proposes a duality, making a clear distinction between being and seeming. As is shown in the following excerpt: “this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming” (Kincaid 57). Finally, there is another distinction between either apparently or comply fully a social norm. For example: It is socially important to know how to serve a table, because it is visible to people and this simple action quickly evidence the cultural level of a person while other actions can be executed in a hidden social way. For instance, a unwanted pregnancy normally occurs outside of marriage, since the social norm demands sexual abstinence before marriage, a woman will be rejected by society because she did not meet that social norm. Nevertheless secretly, she may have a way (like abortion) to escape from the scandal. In this regard, the narrator says, “this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child” (Kincaid 57). The narrator in

Nevertheless she shows us also a way to surmount this oppression. In this facet the narrator speaks about two professional men, her husband and her brother, describing them as high standing doctors; in opposition to this man prototype, she speaks about two women without profession except of housewives or housekeeper. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” we see the role of women limited by a patriarchal society that does not allow them to advance or progress. This is seen in the following excerpts, when the narrator describes her sister-in-law, “She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession.” (Gilman 217). The narrator stresses the difference in position between men and women within a patriarchal society, when she expresses her opinion in contrast to her husband’s about her illness. She highlights the fact that even though if her husband was wrong, due that he is in a superior position, she cannot do anything. However, the narrator finds two ways out of this oppression; by writing secretly from her husband, the oppressive figure, and her sister-in-law, who represents the traditional role of women of the time; and through reading the wallpaper of her room. In this manner, the narrator manages to express herself freely and overcome this oppression, escaping reality through her imagination and finding a space in which neither man nor society can limit her. Gilman shows us a