Civil Disobedience & The Yellow Wallpaper

“Civil Disobedience” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” Breaking free is a tenant in both Dark Romanticism and Transcendentalism, what they are breaking free from is the difference . “The Yellow Wallpaper”’s main objective was for a woman to break free from the conformity of her husband’s rule. The main objective of “Civil Disobedience” is to go against the government’s conformity and rule. In both writings, true reality is spiritual, both writings also express that intuition is superior to logic and reason. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a woman struggles for a grip on reality, but continues to fall deeper into insanity. The woman was put on bed rest by her husband because of her postpartum depression which occurs after having her child. She is essentially forced to live in a room that is insinuated to be the room of an insane asylum. The Wallpaper is “dull enough to confuse the eye” ( Page 3, Paragraph 9 ) as the woman says. As she stays in this room she enroots a deep obsession with the wallpaper. She is fixed on believing a woman is trapped behind it. One day she finally snaps and tears the wallpaper off of the wall, telling her husband “‘I’ve got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back’” ( Page 20, Paragraph 13). I feel the woman trapped behind the wallpaper was symbolizing her situation being trapped in her room. She manifests this thought that she is the woman behind the wallpaper and she is finally breaking free from the room, and from her husband’s watchful eye.
I also believe that the woman, being locked up for so long, begins to see a new vision of reality. She, of course, is really going insane, but much like a transcendental idea, she is being cut off from the rest of the world and is meditating or getting deeper in touch with herself. She is discovering that there is more to reality than the physical world. The woman follows her intuition and believes what she begins to see. She discovers that true reality is spiritual. It contains signs and symbols that we wouldn’t notice otherwise. The woman in the story begins to see the woman escape during the day. She says “I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines.” ( Page 16, Paragraph 7 ). The woman she sees escaping symbolizes her desire to be free from the room and to be outside with nature.
Nature is a key part of transcendental ideals. It is shown in “Civil Disobedience” when Thoreau is locked up for not paying his taxes. Being locked in a cell all night gives Thoreau a new view on his town. He hears new sounds and sees new things he had never stopped to pay attention to before. Thoreau being locked in a cell and realizing new things is very similar to the woman being locked in a room and realizing a new reality. As stated before, Thoreau was locked up for not paying his taxes, for breaking free from the conformity of the government and their overpowering laws. He expresses this when saying “If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law” (:You told me not to cite this :)
The difference between the two stories would be what they were breaking free of. In "The Yellow Wallpaper" the woman is trying to break free from the confinement of her room and it's hideous wallpaper. In "Civil Disobedience" Thoreau is breaking free from the shackles of the government by not paying his taxes. They both excellently display the meaning of breaking free, although they do it in different ways.