Preview

Free Labor, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
939 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Free Labor, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Throughout time, the world and the events that have taken place in the world, have been shaped by their past. This is the very same thing that happens with literature because literature is shaped by the past events and actions caused by people from the past and in return, literature will shape the events and actions of people in the future. To cause these impacts on history, authors write various pieces to shed light on enormous issues in America that many people will turn a blind eye to. These authors challenge and help change the status quo with their works so that they can ensure freedom and rights to those who deserve them. Through the analysis of Free Labor, a protest poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper; The Yellow Wallpaper, a short …show more content…
In the time period from 1855 to 1925, many types of people, including African Americans and women, lack the basic human rights we know today. The authors of these groups fought for rights in their works. The short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and published in 1892. Gilman wanted better treatment for women and thought that people should be more concerned with women’s issues. Gilman’s wrote The Yellow Wallpaper to put emphasize on the treatment for postpartum depression for women in her time period. Those who suffered from postpartum depression would be kept away from all creative expression and would be required to stay at home. Patients were allowed to have only two hours of mental stimulation a day. Gilman was a patient herself and said that she almost went crazy. Her story depicts the effects on women when they use the treatment and was meant to be used to open the eyes of the public to end this procedure. In Gilman’s story, she talks about a woman who starts to become crazy after spending long periods of time in her room. The woman in the story starts to see things in her wallpaper and becomes so deranged that she believes there is a woman living in the wallpaper. Gilman later sent a copy of this work to the doctor who put her on the treatment. The doctor read the story and it later caused him and society to stop using the treatment. Gilman had reached parts of her goal by ending a horrifically unmonitored treatment for women and caused the world to look into women’s issues. Her work successfully impacted society and made it change for the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    "The Yellow Wallpaper (original title: "The Yellow Wall-paper. A Story") is a 6,000-word short story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine.[2] It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's health, both physical and mental.…

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written in 1892, metaphorically illustrates the captive and oppressed state of women during those time period through which Gilman herself had experienced for many years with bouts of depression and anxiety and was advised to do the “rest cure” for nervous illness and depression. The woman in the story goes insane because her role in society is limited and her ability…

    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper," she submitted her essay to Dr. Mitchell. He changed his treatment after reading the story (footnote in Gilman 431). "The Yellow…

    • 2042 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story of a woman who goes mad while fixating on a bizarre wall-covering has been used as an early example of post-partum depression. In the latter part of the 1800’s women were seen as inferior subordinates to men who could not be trusted due to the effect of the female organs on their brains. The narrator is almost certainly a victim of the lack of medical knowledge of the day, while the prevailing attitudes in the medical field of women as childlike and the social pressure of male domination contribute to the narrator’s illness. The husband’s role as spouse and physician enable his benevolent manipulation of the narrator by isolating her and removing her societal roles as wife and mother in an effort to help her cure herself of her hysteria. Placed in a vacuum of selfhood in which the nanny and sister-in-law are allowed to usurp her identity, she is left no other choice but to create a new existence using the unhealthy stimulation of the yellow wallpaper.…

    • 1086 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short story demonstrates the need for a woman to be independent. It examines a woman's fall into the madness due to their personal inactivity. In a much broader sense, the short story also highlights the struggles between marriage and career, along with social expectations and personal goals. While researching and reading about Gilman's personal life, many events reflect on her own feelings. The narrator, Jane, lost much self determination and independence, although the determination that did remain was her urge to rip down the wallpaper and set the strange woman locked in it free. At least obsessing over the wallpaper allowed her to occupy her mind. Without a doubt, the narrator is…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Much of this story is centered on eerie descriptions of the yellow wallpaper and the woman's obsessive interactions with it. It is important, though, to understand that although the plot is primarily based around her neurosis, the objective of the story is to deliver a completely unrelated message. Many critics of "The Yellow Wallpaper" claim that the story might drive someone mad simply by reading it, but this, in my opinion, is beside the point. Gilman seeks instead to evoke a message of individual expression and successfully does so by recording the progression of the illness, through the state of the wallpaper.…

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Ap World History Essay

    • 1561 Words
    • 7 Pages

    understands all 10 documents (1 point) and uses them all as evidence (2 points). Point of view is clearly…

    • 1561 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Yellow Wallpaper Thesis

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Gilman used her chance as a writer to critique the role of a married women. Turning this issue into a theme found within “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Gilman challenged the subordination of women in marriage with the narrator’s relationship with her husband John, who also happens to be her physician. Though her husband is careful and loving to her, he misjudges her thoughts and dominates over her because of his status of being her physician: “You see he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do? If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression-a slight hysteria tendency-what is one to do?” (Gilman 238). The narrator has no voice for herself, she is trapped and unhappy under what her husband says: “John says if I don’t pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Michell in the fall. But I don’t want to go there at all…”(Gilman 242). The narrator had no one to believe in her and no one to stand up for her; she can’t even stand up for herself, because of the reputation behind having…

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892, depicted the medical care of depression and beliefs of that era and the treatment of women. 2. The struggle in the story was an unnamed writer and her husband, John, who was a physician and was treating his wife for depression. 3. The author was the protagonist who was ill and found her being placed in a rundown mansion situated in a rural area, far from society.…

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper Essay

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman explores the oppression of women in the nineteenth century and how this led to the limitation of freedom, leading to confinement of many women during this time. It illustrates the male superiority over the female and the elimination of a voice and a say for these women regarding their own lives. The short story is structured to appear a bit creepy and horrific, but within this method the author created a strong female character who, even though is slowly deteriorating psychologically, is trying to fight the pressure that society in the nineteenth century is placing on her and also the pressure of her own husband. The style that the author was trying to create is clear through her use…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lives for women in 1892 were heavily controlled by men. Women were treated as if they were inferior to men. Charlotte Perkins Gilman brings light to this problem in a interesting way. Gilman herself, was in fact driven to near madness and later claimed to have written “The Yellow Wallpaper” to protest this treatment of women like herself, and specifically to address her physician. Although they never replied to Gilman personally, they are said to have confessed to a friend that they had changed their treatment of hysterics after reading the story. While real life aspects are apparent it’s the symbolism and subliminal feminist in her story to show how a woman’s role in society is limited with no control or creative outlet.…

    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman engages the audience into the inner self of a young mother and wife throughout the story. The story has grown from a remedy to depression to a female defiance to a male society. Gilman’s purpose in writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” shows the courage a woman had to demonstrate a positive change in her self-identity and free her from the social, domestic, and psychological confinement that were placed on women in the 1800’s. By writing the story from a first-person feministic point of view the narrator shows the struggle of women’s independence and individuality in a male dominated society through gender stereotype that exist between the society and the protagonist in “The Yellow Wallpaper.”…

    • 3424 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Charlotte Perkin Gilman is internationally known for her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Gilman was born on July 3, 1860. After marriage, she endured depressions several times shortly after her first daughter was born. Gilman suffered from mental breakdowns which soon lead to melancholia. Her personal experiences, dealing with post-partum depression, are what inspired Gilman to write the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”. This story revolves around the main character, Jane, and how she copes with her illness. Jane suffers from post-partum depression, and to “cure” this illness, she is kept isolated from the world. In this short story there are many influences that impact the conflict of the story. Social influences are present in the story as Jane is kept isolated from the world. Also, cultural events in the story, related to the Victorian era, when women were treated unequally, built up the storyline. Finally, several personal events in Gilman’s past are shown throughout the story and add to the story’s conflict. Therefore, Charlotte Perkin Gilman incorporates several aspects of her own life into her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” that becomes evident through the explanation of the Gilman’s universal truth that treating women inhumanely will only result in negative outcomes; it is the reverse cure for an illness.…

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The novella The Yellow Wallpaper is a small masterpiece written by, Charlotte P Gilman. She enlightens her readers to the living conditions of a middle class woman during the late 1800s. This is portrayed through use of the narrator, who documents the different factors that impact upon the different stages of her mental breakdown. The readers can see that through the novel, Gilman portrays the life of a young woman who struggles to maintain her integrity as an individual in the everyday society.…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    History has shown that women were considered second-class citizens for much of the nineteenth century, oppressed by the opposite sex for being “weak”. This oppression is not uncommon to literature; in fact, it has become usual to read about many of the societal obstacles that women had to surpass in order to advance to freedom. In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses the protagonist—also the narrator—to portray the repression of women during this time period. The anonymous narrator begins the story by telling of her husband and their summer home. Initially all seems well, however the reader comes to find that the entire story is a compilation of writings that were written in secret; the…

    • 1452 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays