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"The Yellow Wallpaper": Decorating The Ugly Truth Of Oppression - College Essays

"The Yellow Wallpaper": Decorating The Ugly Truth Of Oppression

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born during the women's suffrage movement. Choosing writing as a career, one of the few careers open to women at the time and one that would allow her a voice, she found her niche. Through literature she was able to express her feminist ideals and wield them at men's oppression towards women. In doing so, she became a commanding force for women's rights. While there are many ways to read "The Yellow Wallpaper", given Gilman's past as a feminist writer leads me to the most plausible reading, which is as a feminist statement on the forms of psychological oppression experienced by women, that lead to the destruction of a woman's self-identity.
One of the ...

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He devised a "prescription for each hour in the day"(1572) as he saw her as being incapable of seeing to her own schedule, even when all she was supposed to do was rest. These antiquated stereotypes are so ingrained she defers to him over her own judgement. To show how oppressive the husband's views are the wife describes the house they are to stay in as "a colonial mansion, a hereditary estate"(1571). This conjures images of medieval time when men were considered lords of the manor. The image is precisely what Gilman wants us to see, that this stereotype is an archaic belief and that it has no place in an enlightened society.
This psychological stereotype was also manifested in physical ways. Gilman cleverly sets the surroundings of this oppressed wife by giving an impression that while the husband put the wife in a "mansion" as a place to rest, he very well put her in a prison. Their rental is beautifully surrounded by gardens, but is also surrounded by "hedges and walls ...

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 6/22/2007 03:36:35 PM
Category: English
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 945
Pages: 4

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