The Yellow Wallpaper and Feminism
The yellow wallpaper is an essential piece of literature that explains the state of women affairs in the 19th century. A woman whose husband locked her up for a long time in a house they had rented for summer writes the story. She had just conceived, and her husband tricked her to wait and recuperate in a locked room. However, her husband and her brother who are doctors by profession will not hear of it. She is also highly suspicious of the fact that her husband could be part of the reason she is unwell. Obviously, she cannot point out her suspicion as he is extremely superstitious and a conformist of the norms laid out by society. As expected, the woman suffers intense levels of depression because she cannot work or leave the house without her husband’s permission. This type of behavior was not unheard of from the men in that century. The woman talks about the state of her health mentally and physically. Her husband had instructed her to take medication even when she felt that it was unnecessary. She talks about having to write in her journal in secret and how it made her tired to hide this fact to the people around her She was trapped in a room with barred doors and windows to prevent her forever leaving. She did not have anything to obsess over except the color of her wallpaper .The wallpaper was displeasing to her in the beginning stating the peculiarity of the yellow wallpaper. She disliked it at first glance because it reminded her of ugly things. The yellow she was familiar with reminded her of good things such as buttercups. She also thought that the wallpaper had an unfamiliar smell that made her sick with every passing day (Gilman 11). In the end, she is afraid to leave the house for fear of the many unfamiliar things she would encounter after confinement for such a long time. Interpretations on her insanity in the end could be that she gained autonomy from a trapped marriage.
In that century, the men had all the say. The woman could not object to her husband or she would have the society looking down on her. The wallpaper is significant to the woman as it helped her cope with the fact that she could not write in her journal or talk to anyone. She formed a connection with the paper that in her own way allowed her to escape her depression (Oakley 12). The women she saw in the wallpaper inspired her to escape to a world in which no man could control her. In the end, she creeps over her husband symbolizing that she had risen from his grasp and regardless of whether she was sane or not, she had overcome the man that had tormented her for years. The smudge discovered by the woman in the room kept moving all over the wallpaper. This could have presented itself the first sign of insanity (Vertinsky 23). The smudge would move about like a person moving around the wallpaper. The woman became obsessed with finding a way to liberate the woman in the wallpaper. In a sense, she was hoping to help someone else so that the woman in the wall would not have to suffer as she had all her life. She saw herself as a redeemer, and a savior. The basis of the feminist movement was founded in the concept of women helping fellow women to secure their freedom.
Many critics attempted to reject the yellow wallpaper. It allowed the women to think that they could overcome the centuries of control that their husbands had imposed on them. At the time, women were the weaker sex incapable of amounting to much other than becoming wives and bearing children. There was a lot of ridicule directed to women that thought they could do more like go to school and many times doctors threatened that they would go crazy by overworking their brains. There is a lot of irony in this as the woman with the yellow wallpaper suffered mental problems even when she complied with the expectations of society. Gilman wrote her book at a time when women had no say over their issues. She paved the way to women securing their freedom and their rights. The woman’s insanity according to Gilman was a way to protest. She was against not only the gender roles assigned to her but also the medical profession that prescribed rest and docility as a cure (Gilman and Jane 34). It is vital to note that her husband was a qualified medical profession and considering he married the woman, he should have understood her needs better. He should have acted in the best interest of his wife and let her out once he realized that the rest assigned to her was not working.
John, the woman’s husband prevented her from making entries in her journal. Writing would allow her to create a sense of identity for herself and maybe even garner strength to fight against her husband’s oppression. Gilman herself had prior experience after a doctor diagnosed her to a domestic life that nearly cost her sanity. She wrote the book as a way to prevent other women from suffering the same fate she would have suffered. The woman might have gone insane in the end, but the story of her insanity paved the way for millions of women to find their voice. This assisted women to create a movement that would fight for women that could not fight for themselves. Just like the women trapped in the room and the wall consecutively.
American Romanticism
The concept of romanticism originated from Europe as a means to react and deal with issues that were ongoing at that time. The new world in general, experienced hardcore changes in terms of agriculture, technology and the different writing forms. The industrial revolution was an ongoing process at the time, and different authors and poets received it with mixed reactions. Most artistic people did not appreciate the effects of the period especially the negative aspects it brought about in areas that subjected nature and the environment to scientific explanations and ramifications. The movement allowed writers to express their emotions in raw ways that elicited emotions form the audience. Romantic writers dared to be different in terms of describing the situations around them whether nature, norms, or art. Romanticism ensured that most writers strayed from the norm, where there was a predetermined way of doing things to the system that allowed them to manipulate the situations surrounding them to provide spectacular literal works.
Most writers like William Vaughn Moody and Stephen Crane were clearly not afraid to be spontaneous in terms of providing giving vivid descriptions of their environment. For instance, Stephen Crane does a stupendous job giving a description of the state of New York at the time. His works were sparked with lines and stanzas that described the unfavorable economic status of New York. This ensured the happiness of only the rich while the poor languished in poverty and attempts to survive. His poem ‘The Trees in The Garden Rained Flowers’ incorporates all the elements surrounding nature at a financially difficult New York. He particularly mentions flowers in his poem while incorporating the individuals in the environment and synchronizes their activities with nature. The poet thought out his subject well without giving the appearance that the he underwent a rigorous thought process (Crane 60).
His poem Gloucester Town has a flamboyant description of the sea and some of the noises familiar to the setting. This creates an image in the reader’s mind that gives the audience a chance to feel and imagine the subject as though they are physically there. He used his imagination and painted a powerful scenario that is still acceptable in today’s society. He goes into a thorough process of describing the weather and the port. His imagination goes wild as he frantically attempts to describe the chaos at the port, portraying the sadness and fear in his words. His poem, ‘On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines’ is short, but the poet still manages to encapsulate the roaring of the crowd as they jubilate for the fallen soldier. The author is takes the audience by surprise by providing a sudden twist in the plot, showing a lot of imagination from the writer (Moody, 62).
The process of combining rationalizing and imagination supplied some of the best forms of art in this period. Both writers in the review subjected their works to vivid descriptions of their environment, transforming their works from ideas to personified colorful portrayal of their subjects. The poems also have certain vagueness to them. By incorporating the use of eminent symbols such that they leave it to the audience to interpret their poems whichever way they please. There is a heavy presence of static characterization in both poems. The audience does not get the opportunity to select a character with whom the audience can identify. This aspect exemplifies the romantic period in terms of the arts.
Works Cited
Crane Stephen. The Trees in the Garden Rained Flowers (1871–1900). American Literature
since the Civil War.
Gilman, Charlotte P, and Ann J. Lane. The Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Reader: […]. Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1999. Print.
Gilman, Charlotte P. The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories. Minneapolis, Minn.: Filiquarian
Pub., LLC, 2007. Print.
Moody William V. Gloucester Moors & On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines. (1869–1910)
American Literature since the Civil War.
Oakley, Ann. Essays on Women, Medicine and Health. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
Univ. Press, 1993. Print.
Vertinsky, Patricia A. The Eternally Wounded Woman: Women, Doctors, and Exercise in the
Late Nineteenth Century. Urbana [Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1994. Print.
