ipl-logo

What Is Gilman's Attitude Towards Women In 1900

988 Words4 Pages

Nowadays it looks like that no matter where you turn you can see women with careers or jobs. They are standing beside men, working together. Men and women have equal rights at the present time. There are still some places, occupations, or culture where women are not welcome as openly as they should have been. In 19th century, men were expected to go out work, hang out with friends in bars clubs and other places and live a life. Whereas women were expected to live as a housewife. They were supposed to cook, clean the house and take care of the kids. The Gilman’s story “the Yellow Wallpaper” is a symbol to how women were treated in the 1900, it’s related to the men attitude towards women in 1900. The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written …show more content…

In the “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman shows the wife’s craziness to question the medical and doctors way to treat the women at that time. I don’t think the husbands or doctors at the time had any bad interests of their wife’s or women, it was the role of the men played as the dominant-superior. Women were not allowed to write because the society thought that it would create an identity for women which men wouldn’t stand for. In the story john wasn’t cruel to his wife on purpose. He actually was concerned about his wife’s condition. As being a doctor he thinks that whatever he is doing to his wife is for her own good. It is clear that he has good intentions for his wife, but the writer is telling her readers that attitudes of the men toward women that were established in their minds by their society. Until the women’s movement the men didn’t even know that their behavior was considered cruel. John just wanted his wife to get out of the depression by locking her away, and if you look at the story at the end she did came out of her depression because she lost the touch of reality and in her mind she was trying to save another woman from the yellow wallpaper. She forgot her own depression because she went insane. The story is related to Gilman herself. She did have a miscarriage and went into depression. She was prescribed a same cure as the wife in the story. By her writing she just wanted to change

Show More
Related
1299 Words | 6 Pages

Critical Lens Essay #2 In the 19th century women begun to rise up against gender roles and social expectations that have had oppressed women throughout history, women yearned to be just as equal as men. Authors like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a feminist author during the 19th century, would create characters and stories that would get her message across as shown in one of Gilman’s most famous stories “The Yellow Wallpaper” which touches upon a woman’s mental and physical health as well as the main character’s oppression which holded her back for a long time. The main character from “The Yellow Wallpaper” expresses throughout the story how she wishes to break free from all that is holding her back and live the life she has always wanted.

Read More
416 Words | 2 Pages

In this dialogue, John puts the fact that he is a physician over anything she has to say. Within the time period this short story was written in, doctors were often male and being one was often associated with high stature, logic, and upper-class life. Within that same era, women were not allowed to do such masculine jobs. This resulted in them having to resort to other professions such as writing; however, writers, unlike doctors, were often portrayed as creative, imaginative, and poor. Such qualities were simply not valued as much as those of doctors at the time.

Read More
650 Words | 3 Pages

In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, author Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses many literary techniques to allow the reader to understand the universal truth that a woman’s class is seen as lower than that of a man’s, due to their sex. We see this truth throughout the literary work, when the main character who is a woman, is put in confinement and later becomesdistraught and mentally unstablebecause her husband and brother who are both Physicians diagnoses her as “nervously depressed”. Two techniques author Gilman uses is tone and diction to illustrate how the narrator, among most women in that time period is treated as below men in class, with little say in their own mental or physical issues. Gilman utilizes tone to illustrate the universal truth of gender being in hand with class status, effectively. In the literary work,the narrator’s tone shifts from hopeless in the beginning, to determine in the end.

Read More
896 Words | 4 Pages

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Jane is a mentally ill woman whose surroundings are only worsening her condition. Jane’s husband, a physician, thinks that a change of scenery will benefit her condition and takes it upon himself to relocate to a summer home, not knowing that this new environment will be Jane’s downfall. The entire story is written as a journal, inscribed by Jane whenever she can stealthily disobey her husband to write. Gilman writes the story from Jane’s point of view to coax the reader into a deeper understanding of Jane’s mental battles and the overall theme of oppression. Gilman’s choice of style for this short story exponentially enhances the effectiveness of the text because the reader is opened

Read More
737 Words | 3 Pages

He hovers, he quietly controls, and furthermore, portrays a narrow mind, to the point of extreme. “John is a physician, and PERHAPS—(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)—PERHAPS that is one reason I do not get well faster.” (376) “You see he does not believe I am sick!” (376) as her self-awareness develops she becomes mindful of yet another symbol of John’s control and narrow mindedness. He has just enough arrogance to the point of telling his wife, how she should feel based on his own merits and limited knowledge of a female’s internal workings.

Read More
475 Words | 2 Pages

The 1920s were an era of exciting social reforms and deep cultural struggles. During this decade, time became progressive for women in America. Women were allowed to experience freedom on a more personal level. This didn’t hold back all the sexism that caused quite the controversy. Women from rural parts of the country started moving to the urban areas in search of jobs.

Read More
871 Words | 4 Pages

Jane tells John, her husband, what she is feeling, but he does not listen to her and assumes everything is fine ( Gilman 527). John decides to ignore her feelings instead of trying to help her; this suggests that their relationship is not healthy. According to Suess, Jane also has an unhealthy relationship with the medical language. One of the reasons she feels this way is because according to doctors, there is nothing wrong with her health. Mental problems, such as depression, are issues men in the nineteenth century do not seem to be aware of (Suess).

Read More
1067 Words | 5 Pages

As we look at marriages in today’s day and age, it is difficult for a man to be more dominant over his wife. Women are allowed to work in any profession they choose, and do not need to rely on a man for money. However, centuries ago in the progressive era, men were superior and dominant over their wife. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s novel “The Yellow Wallpaper” portrays this type of image where a woman is controlled and trapped in her marriage by her husband John. In this era, they considered articles exposing issues like this as muckraking.

Read More
1414 Words | 6 Pages

The protagonist of The Yellow Wallpaper anthropomorphizes the floral elements of the yellow wallpaper, wherein wallpaper is typically a feminine floral decoration on wall interiors. These elements signify the scrutiny Victorian society makes of lives of its womenfolk, particularly of women who are creative and insubordinate to their spouses. The protagonist is one such woman; her writing denounces her imaginative character and the surreptitious persistence of her writing denounces her matrimonial and feminine disobedience which were considered radical in her contemporary society. Gilman expresses the suppression felt by women from societal scrutiny to be one of “strangling”, through the narrator, who in one instance describes the wallpaper pattern like so: “it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads… the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down, and makes their eyes white!” Her anthropomorphizing of the pattern of the wallpaper adopts a grimmer facet when she writes that “when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide.”

Read More
963 Words | 4 Pages

As we come to discover John, controls the narrator and she, with her benevolence and love that she has for John trusts whatever he advises her. All through the start of the story, it is obvious that the narrator wishes to talk, however, something holds her back and this consumes her since she has nobody to converse with. The narrator says, "It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so". The incongruity of this quote and of the entire story is that this is a marriage, but the relationship amongst John and the narrator are

Read More
774 Words | 4 Pages

She wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” in an effort to open the public’s eyes to the unfairness of this treatment. By infusing Jane’s narrative with childish language and actions without ever actually calling “Jane” by her name, Gilman creates a universal experience any woman of the time could insert herself into. This allowed women to fully realize the injustice they faced. John’s belittlement of Jane also serves to create both a universal and eye opening experience for the women reading it. Additionally, for those who were willing to read into the symbolism, the nursery and the meaning underlying it added to the injustice Gilman conveys.

Read More
814 Words | 4 Pages

Everything from how her interactions with her family to her perception of her environment and how it evolves throughout the story allow the reader to almost feel what the narrator is feeling as the moves through the story. In the beginning, the only reason the reader knows there may be something wrong with the narrator is because she comes right out and says she may be ill, even though her husband didn’t believe she was (216). As the story moves on, it becomes clear that her illness is not one of a physical nature, but of an emotional or mental one. By telling the story in the narrator’s point of view, the reader can really dive into her mind and almost feel what she’s feeling.

Read More
1106 Words | 5 Pages

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator, Jane, has postpartum depression. In order to cure this depression, John, Jane’s husband and a doctor, administer the rest treatment on her. Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” through her personal experience. Along with writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” she wrote an explanation for why she wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

Read More
1091 Words | 5 Pages

Gender Inequality: A Woman’s Struggle in “The Yellow Wallpaper” In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman captures the lives of women in a society based on societal expectations during the late nineteenth century. She focuses on the issue of gender inequality where women were often discriminated against and expected to fulfill the role of a perfect wife and mother. The narrator is based on on Gilman’s personal experience of suffering from her treatment for postpartum depression due to the social restrictions on women which represents a reflection on women's social status in society. The narrator, who remains anonymous, is depicted as a depressed and isolated prisoner who is oppressed under her husband’s control and struggles to break free.

Read More
810 Words | 4 Pages

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman shows the pain women had to go through to be heard. The whole story demonstrates Gilman 's view on feminism through the male and female dialogue in the. As well as the symbolism of the yellow wallpaper itself and the imprisonment its captured. One can learn from the story that gender roles should be removed as they can cause a feeling of imprisonment and psychological struggles on women, as well as women, should live

Read More

More about What Is Gilman's Attitude Towards Women In 1900

Related Topics

Open Document