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Graded Assignment – LAC II Unit 2, Lesson13
Literary Essay about a Character Final Draft
Type your name, the date, your teacher’s name, and your school name at the top of this page. Type or paste your draft into this document. Be sure that your draft is double-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman font. Save the file as:
LACII_S2_2.13_Literary_Essay_FirstInitial_LastName.doc
Example: LACII_S2_2.13_Literary_Essay_T_Williams.doc
(100 points)
"The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, tells the story of a woman's descent into madness as a result of the "rest and ignore the problem cure" that is frequently prescribed to cure hysteria and nervous conditions in women. More importantly, the story is about control and attacks the role of women in society. The narrator of the story is symbolic for all women in the late 1800s, a prisoner of a confining society. Women are expected to bear children, keep house and do only as they are told. Since men are privileged enough to have education, they hold jobs and make all the decisions. Thus, women are cast into the prison of acquiescence because they live in a world dominated by men. Since men suppress women, John, the narrator's husband, is presumed to have control over the protagonist. Gilman, however, suggests otherwise. She implies that it is a combination of society's control as well as the woman's personal weakness that contribute to the suppression of women. These two factors result in the woman's inability to make her own decisions and voice opposition to men.
John, the narrator's husband, represents society at large. Like society, John controls and determines much of what his wife should or should not do, leaving his wife incapable of making her own decisions. John's domineering