Set in the early 1900's, The Yellow Wall-Paper is about a woman assumed to have a false disorder called hysteria and is entrapped in an airy, cringe-worthy room prescribed by her physicist husband. Throughout the story, our protagonist slowly goes insane, seeing a woman trapped behind the piss-yellow wall-paper. The subtext of this story implies that this woman is trying to save herself.
The question for discussion: How are relationships between men and women are portrayed in this story?
The physicist, John, is the true antagonist from the first page. He decides who goes where and what happens, even with his sister who assumes her "natural female job" as a house-maid. John has convinced our hero she is insane when, from reading the first couple pages, seems quite normal. Because of John's forceful nature and entitlement to being right and more intelligent, the woman becomes insane due to the situation she is put in.
What I'm trying to get at here is that woman in this era are taught to be submissive towards men and not to question the expectations of what a woman can and cannot do or feel. They are in a constant cage of limited activity, which was contextualized to the T with our hero gaining intrigue in assisting a helpless woman behind the wall-paper. It's really her, trapped in a male-driven world.
No comments:
Post a Comment