The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlette Gilman
How would you feel if you were told what to do just because of your sex, and had no say in what you believed in? This is what happened to Jane, Just because she believed in something different her husband, he said she was sick, and had her stay in a room until she got better, or actually until she cracked. The characters show so much of relating to the feminism. The symbols show how she thought of things that she didn’t want her husband to know. Also the setting shows where everything came from with the belief in specific things. After reading the story and focusing on the characters it is easy to notice where feminist criticism comes into play.
Jane, Jennie, and John are who you see it all from. With Jane she stats in the story “I have a schedule prescription for each hour n the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more” (Gilman). Jane is on a strict schedule that she didn’t make but john did, so she has no say what so ever in it. She feels bad if she doesn’t listen because then she would feel ungrateful. The only reason she listens to him is because she know he wouldn’t actually believe what she have to say, for example of her not being sick.
John wont let Jane say anything in what she believes so he tells her she’s sick, and makes her believe this because he’s a physician (. Since Jennie is his sisters she says what ever john says, so it just gets plowed deeper into Jane’s head, even though Jennie is a woman to begin with “She is a perfect housekeeper, and hope no better profession” (gilman). It’s all just because she’s family of john. From reading this story you could point out about every thing that relates to feminist criticism, easily. For example, the main one, how John tells Jane that she’s sick, even though she really isn’t, which happens multiple time throughout this story “He is very careful and loving” (Gilman).
Also many other ones are how she sees the other woman in the dirty yellow wall paper. How it looks like she is behind bars, shaking the bars, trying to get out she says “I never so much expression in an inanimate (Gilman). It basically relates to how Jane is feeling deep down. She wants to get out, because she knows it’s just not right. She knows she can’t get out unless something is destroyed. So she tears the wallpaper, which I believe symbolizes her escape, and destroying her mentality.
Since she thought that there was someone there in the first place. Also her husband would be destroyed because he would know that there was something deeply wrong. The things that are believed, and they way things are put in the story makes it all set when men didn’t believe that woman had a say in what happens, if its for them or if its not. The way John tells Jane that she’s sick. There was a time where guys were the top dog and that’s the time that this is based in. The setting of the room shows, the old yellow wall paper.
The bed that was nailed down. It was terrible. Like a jail sell, or a room in a institution. Which she was basically in because of her trying to state what she believes in, she wasn’t able to leave. “She wasn’t anywhere but in her room”(Gilman) She could only stay in the room at al times until her husband came home or going outside for a walk. Just because your thought didn’t count doesn’t mean someone should take advantage of it like John did.
The whole story has things like this in it. If you pay attention to all the characters. What they say and what time it seems to be placed in, you can tell that they all believed in something different. Some thing either against the females, or thinking that what they have is right and what’s being done is wrong.
