Gilman's Protagonist And Woolf's Judith Shakespeare example essay topic

Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper focus on the status of women in the history. Both of their works show the repression of women who are unable to express their ideas in a male dominated society. Woolf in A Room of One's own believes women need money and a room of their own to write. Woolf says that women need to be independent from men, and in order to do so women need to have money of their own.

Gilman in The Yellow Wall-Paper writes about the repression generated by the gender roles established by the society which hinders men and women from developing and practicing their ideas. In A Room of One's Own Woolf gives readers a clear picture of what would have happened if a woman in Shakespeare's day had had Shakespeare's genius. She describes the conditions women lived under during the Elizabethan period. Woolf writes " For it is a perennial puzzle why no women wrote a word of that extraordinary literature when every other man, it seemed, was capable of song or sonnet". (Woolf 288).

She finds evidence of the status of women as property in Professor Trevelyan's History of England; wife-beating was practiced without shame and women were forced to marry the men of their parent's choice. Woolf finds that women are of great importance in poetic works, but in real life they were beaten and locked up. A very queer, composite being thus emerges. (Woolf 290) In order to illustrate women's oppression Woolf gives the readers an imaginative story of what would have happened if Shakespeare had had a sister, Judith, as talented as he was.

Judith had the ability to produce works, just like her brother but Judith never had any education. The story of Judith goes like this: Judith's father arranges a marriage for her, Judith wanting to become an actress runs away from home and goes to the city where she's mocked on, taken advantage of. Finally she kills herself at the crossroads. The Yellow Wall-Paper by Gilman, is told in the style of a secret journal that begins when a young woman suffering from postpartum depression is taken to the country for treatment of a nervous illness by her husband who is a physician. The narrator of this story is a young woman, who does not relish the joys of marriage and motherhood but instead wants to write.

Unfortunately, neither the society nor her husband tries to understand her desire. She is forbidden from writing and kept passive in the rest cure. Alone in her room, she projects onto the yellow wallpaper her own state of imprisonment. Finally her health gets worsen and she is driven to the stage of mental imbalance. Throughout the story there are examples of dominant and submissive relationship. Nobody gives importance to the emotions of the narrator " You see he does not believe I am sick!

And what can one do? [... ] Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good " (Gilman 10). Gilman's protagonist and Woolf's Judith Shakespeare are treated as objects by their masters- the protagonist's husband and Judith's father. Whenever Gilman's protagonist wants to discuss about her desires with her husband John, he stops the conversation and treats her like a child".

There is something strange about the house-I can feel it. I even said to John [... ] but he said what I felt was draught, and shut the window " (Gilman 11). He is not ready to listen to her since he has no respect for her thoughts. He does not understand the narrators passion in writing and forbids her from writing". There comes John, and I must put this away, - he hates to have me write a word" (Gilman 13).

John also tells the narrator that he's in the country solely on her account but he leaves her alone most of the time to do his own work". He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get " (Gilman 12). At one point in the story, the narrator who wants to visit her cousin, is desperate to talk to John, but John pays no attention to her". I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia " (Gilman 21). The narrator is not even given a chance to choose her own room". I don't like our room a bit [... ] but John would not hear of it " (Gilman 12).

The narrator observes the female figure, which looks as if a woman is behind the bars, in the pattern of the wallpaper. The narrator begins to symbolize herself to be the woman behind the bars whose attempts are unsuccessful in climbing out of the pattern. Finally her husband and the society drive the narrator to insanity. In Woolf's essay, Judith Shakespeare is not even consulted about her marriage". She cried out that marriage was hateful to her, and for that she was severely beaten by her father " (Woolf 292). Her life revolves around lives of men.

She's not given a proper education by her father who fails to respect her strive for becoming a writer. She runs away from home not happy with her father's choice. Unfortunately she finds herself in a male dominated society where she's suppressed from exhibiting her talents. Judith is taken advantage of, finds herself with child".

At last Nick Greene the actor-manager took pity on her; she found herself with child by that gentleman " (Woolf 293). Finally unable to fight, Judith kills herself. Gilman and Woolf describe the state of women seen as the weaker and poor sex who have always been dependent on men, taking care of the family. When we question ourselves why women are dependent on men and men not on women, the answer is men see them superior to women.

Both stories depict women who are struggling for a place in a society governed by men. Gilman and Woolf show the sufferings of women who are not given a choice, whose lives are lead according to the men. Although their work is about the past, those living in the present are not immune from gender oppression.

Bibliography

Woolf, Virginia". A Room of One's Own " 1929 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins.
The Yellow Wallpaper". 1892.