Women In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

Prior to the twentieth century, men defined and assigned women roles. Traditionally, it was the men who held power in the pre-modern society. Women have been treated as second-rate individuals with minimal constitutional rights and the inability to gain respect for their male counterparts. Feminist critics believe that culture has so been involved by training women to accept their secondary status while encouraging young men to take control (Gioia, Gwynn, 895). Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's "The Yellow Wallpaper" tells the story about a delusional woman that tumbles into insanity as a result of the reflection she sees in this wallpaper. One perception of the wallpaper is that she sees a reflection of herself within the walls, trapped, and desperately she tries to free herself. More importantly, the story is about attacking the roles of women in society. The narrator can generally
Gilman tries to emphasize this dilemma through three major characters of the story. She uses John to tackle the role of the symbol of all men, giving him an overriding attitude towards women. Next, she uses Jennie to displace the image that represents all females in Gilman 's time to dissimilate how men and women are completely different. And finally, Gilman uses the narrator as a third-partied character to solve the social dilemma that distinguishes the aspects of men and women through the yellow wallpaper. Given that the presence of the wallpaper, it drives the narrator insane because her function in society is immensely limited to her overall feelings to express herself. In the end the narrator frees herself and by that statement Gilman is intending that all women free themselves from their own "wallpaper". Not just for their recovery, but to stabilize the existence of females from the nineteenth century into the twentieth