Narrator's Passion In Writing example essay topic

Gilman's The Yellow WallPaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper" focuses on the status of women in history. Her work shows the repression of women who are unable to express their ideas in a male dominated society. Gilman writes about the repression generated by the gender roles established by a society that hinders men and women from developing and practicing their ideas. This story is told in the style of a secret journal that begins when a young woman suffering from postpartum depression, and 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 a male dominated society nor her husband makes an attempt to understand her desire.

She is forbidden from writing and kept passive as a means to cure her. Alone in her room, she projects onto the yellow wallpaper her own state of imprisonment. Finally her health worsens and she is driven to a stage of mental imbalance. Throughout the story there are examples of dominant and submissive relationships. Nobody gives importance to the emotions of the narrator as explained in the quote, "You see he does not believe I am sick!

And what can one do" (366)? "Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good" (366). Gilman's protagonist is treated as an object by her husband. Whenever the narrator wants to discuss 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 one moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was draught, and shut the window". (367). He is not ready to listen to her since he has no respect for her thoughts. He does not understand the narrator's passion in writing and forbids her to write. "There comes John, and I must put this away - he hates to have me write a word" (368). 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" (367). At one point in the story, the narrator who wants to visit her cousin desperately wishes to express this to John, but he 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" (371). 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" (367). The narrator observes the female figure, which looks as if a woman is behind the bars, in the pattern of the wallpaper.

She begins to associate herself symbolically as the woman behind the bars whose attempts are unsuccessful in climbing out of the pattern. Finally her husband and the patriarchal society during the time period in which she lives, drive the narrator to insanity. Gilman describes the state of women seen as the weaker 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 during this time period see themselves superior to women. This story depicts a woman who is struggling for a place in a society governed by men. Gilman shows the suffering of a woman who is not given that chance, or a choice, who's life is lead according to what the men around her see as best for her.

Although her work is about the past, in my opinion, those living in the present are also potential targets for gender oppression, and discrimination.