Flashcards
Untitled
Cards in this deck (13)
- 1Imagine this. You’ve been trapped in your room for weeks on end by your so-called “Husband”. You’re driving yourself to insanity, descending into madness with the windows barred, the floors scratched, your mind screaming and the yellow wallpaper staring you blatantly in the face. What would you do? Charlotte Perkins Gillman writes The Yellow Wallpaper, a short story to unravels her dominant theme of oppression against women in the 19th Century and how the a females role in society could easily result in insanity.1
- 2The short story is story that is narrated by a woman is suffering from nervous depression. She is married to a doctor, who controls her entire life through patronizing her and bombarding her with ideas and thoughts that she MUST think and MUST feel. Her husband also demands that she cannot write, he claims that her creative activities will only make her more “crazy” and “anxious”, despite the fact that the narrator finds great joy in expressing her through writing. The women is confined to a room upstairs, which has been located to her by her husband and left with nothing to do apart from stare at the “smoldering” “revolting” wallpaper that surround hers. Sounds appealing right?2
- 3The confinement of the narrator in the room that she is allocated by her husband resembles her position in the patriarchal society she lived in in reference to inequality. The relationship she has with her Husband is a representation of the 19th Centrury inequality and shows Gillmans readers that their “ordinary” relationship was plagued by the control of mind and body through a dominant male attitude.3
- 4I select you Caitlin, to place this sheet over your head, just as the husband in the story selected his wife be placed in a situation not of her choice. Im covering your face to give you the feeling of what the narrator in The Yellow wallpaper experienced whilst being confined to her room alone along with a mental illness. Now I will ask everybody in the room except Caitlin to count with me to ten in order for Caitlin adjust to her new perspective of feeling suffocated and trapped.4
- 5The sheet symbolizes the emotions and feelings that are accompanied with her being confined in the room, as well as her contributing mental illness- Nervous depression. With us counting to ten we symbolize the confinement of the room- the yellow wallpaper as we watch her trapped in the patriarchal society. 1- 2- 3 – 4 -5 -6 – 7- 8 – 9 -10. Ok thank you, you can now remove the sheet from your head. Now Caitlin give me 3 words that describe how you felt. IMPRISONED / ALONE / SUBJECTED5
- 6These words all describe how it would feel for the women in the story constantly, with no control whatsoever of their life. She is constantly smothered and has absolutely no power or contribution to who even she is to a person. But yet she is expected to be a happy wife and mother who is “loved” by her husband.6
- 7Caitlin that was for a 10 seconds that you were put in that uncomfortable position where you felt (IMPRISONED, ALONE, SUBJECTED) as I said previously the narrator experienced those things constantly, there was absolutely no way out. And what does that does to a person psychologically? We can’t blame her for the chemical imbalance in her brain. So where is the women’s voice in this?7
- 8Now let me ask you something. Did any of you notice how I was completely in control of that whole scenario. I selected Caitlin, decided when she put the sheet on and when she took off, addressed you as an audience to count with me, and made Caitlin give me only 3 words to describe how she felt. And really all of you had the right to use your voices and say no if you didn’t want to participate. Through doing this I had control of you, just like the husband in the story who states “You will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind!” He literally tells his own wife what she can and can’t think. If that’s not control, I don’t know what is.8
- 9He also says “I am a doctor dear, I know” when he is reassuring his wife that the room she is in all day is what’s best for her. Because the husband is a doctor he is perceived to be a person of authority who holds great power as well as a male figure who is already in a position of control in the 19th century society. I think it is safe to say that his medical opinion to have his wife locked up in a room is clearly threatening his wife’s sanity. But then again, who is going to question a doctor’s opinion, especially in the 19th Century, in a patriarchal society.9
- 10Nowadays women would find this so patronizing, this is because women today are empowered to make choices by themselves and not look to a man to have them make their decisions for them. The narrator shows a sign of great strength when in the story she gets to the point where she is SO patronized and exhausted by her lack of freedom, of being constantly under the control of her husband. That she tears down the yellow wallpaper that has been smothering her day in, day out. She rips down the wallpaper in order to feel free and repel her husband’s demands. She goes completely against his dominance and uses the yellow wallpaper to express her bursting emotions and needed to get out.11
- 11Perhaps nowadays it would be optimistic to think that men such as the doctor do not control women. However lets not forget that in NZ 1 in 3 women experience psychological or physical abuse from their own partners in their lifetime. I think that it is safe to say that in general the lifestyle of majority of women has definitely improved, there is no denying that. After all NZ was the first country in the world to give women the vote.12
- 12Although I think it is unfair to blanket over the fact that women are still suffering and are completely under control of their so-called loved one, one has to wonder do women in 2014 really have a voice? Or deep down are we covering up the fact that although it isn’t as common as it used to be, there is still a substantial amount of utter control and power of the male gender still existing within our country. And I hate to blame this all on men and assume that all women are innocent but I’d like to raise the point that it has been found that 84% of those arrested for domestic violence are men and 16% are women in NZ, so in result of that I am focusing of the suffering of women, although I do acknowledge and want you to acknowledge that all women are not innocent when it comes to domestic abuse.13
- 13Through The Yellow Wallpaper it was clear to me and I hope it has enabled you as well to gather an understanding of what a females position in 19th century society was like and how her sanity was completely threatened by her own husband. I’d like to leave you with one last thing to think about, the piece of paper that I have handed each of you at the beginning, look at it and really think about how peaceful it looks, how simple and innocent it looks and feels. Now please take your hands and scrunch it up. Flatten it out. Look at it now, try and get out all those creases, dents and damage, try getting it back to the way you had it before. Is that even possible?14
Information
- Description
- Flashcards on Untitled, created by megaanlouise on 11/08/2014.
- Created by
- megaanlouise
- Views
- 16
- Rating