Examine the portrayal of women and isolation in the yellow wallpaper Essay

Examine the portrayal of women and isolation in the yellow wallpaper by charlotte perkins gilman - Essay Example It is these factors; the treatment of herself and women in general, the "rest-cure", the isolation, and the yellow wallpapered room, which eventually drive her to insanity and hysteria. Thesis Gilman tells the story of a woman isolated in her own house through one of her own life experiences in perhaps, an over exaggerated, dramatic kind of way. During the Eighteenth century, women were generally viewed as weak. Women did not work to make money for that was a man's job. Women generally stayed around the house and did household chores. In the narrator's case, the opposite occurs. Husband John forbids for his wife to work or write while she is ill. She feels that it is this "prescription" that keeps her ill. She explains how she wants to rearrange her room if she can not have the downstairs room. John again makes an "executive" decision and says no stating that, "You know the place is doing you good, and really, dear, I don't care to renovate the house just for a three months' rental" (Gilman). It shows how men had the power over women and gave complete disregard for simple requests. The narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" spends so much time in her room that she eventually becomes obsessed with this yellow wallpaper. She becomes so obsessed that she actually believes that she is the woman in the wallpaper. She is the one clim bing out and reaching out through the bars. She becomes delusional. In the Eighteenth century, hysteria was more common in women. According to a professor in bioethics and assistant professor of internal health at Case Western Reserve University, Sana Loue states that "Hysteria, in particular, was believed to be an affliction specific to women. Hysteria was brought on by feelings of depression, nervousness, or crying and could manifest in the form of hysterical "fit" similar to an epileptic seizure" (Gilman). The subjugation that prevailed in the society made women treated as subhuman. They were just considered as vessels of fertility and had the mere privilege of a set of ovaries and a womb. The feminist ideologies of the narrator are evident throughout her talk. She was found subordinate to her husband John who believed that women are frail and can never make decision of their own. The narrator's great passion for life and her strong feministic beliefs do not allowed her to be in the controlled world of her husband. Her house appeared as a prison for her all through these days. The narrator was always under the care of someone, her brother and then her husband. Both of them being doctors do not understand her mind. They are least flexible and only look for her physical recovery (Bak 199). They do not allow her to indulge in something that she wanted to indulge in. She wanted to write; may be she wanted to pour out her depression into words. She was of the belief that more mental and ph ysical activity would solve her problems. She never desired to have physical rest. However her husband and brother were not able to understand this and compelled her to be under complete rest that would make her free from any activity. They were not able to comprehend their self and did not even attempt to understand her. The male dominated world never wanted the husbands to understand their wives. The narrator's husband and broth