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Gender Roles In The Yellow Wallpaper

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Gender Roles In The Yellow Wallpaper
Unit Two: Gender Roles Gender roles are a set of societal norms and values; commonly associated with behavior, and cognitive development. Gender roles are composed on societies concepts of what femininity and masculinity ought to be. Through history, women fought for equality, the women’s suffrage movement aimed towards having the right to vote, equal education and acceptance of masculine behavior in women. The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a short story narrated in first person. The narrator collects an assortment of journal entries while living in a summer house. Throughout the short story, Gilman explores gender roles in marriage.In a modern society, there are gender roles outside a traditional marriage. Gender …show more content…
Amongst many other occupations, males are associated with more complex forms of jobs. In the Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator's husband was a physician and she was a stay home mom after she gave birth to their daughter. The narrator states she would feel better is she could occupy her time with writing or other forms of mental stimulation. She felt trapped and confined to a room where she could only sleep and stare at the yellow wallpaper she believed there was someone behind. The woman behind the wallpaper was a reflection of the narrator trapped in her marriage. While her husband left the house for hours or even days, she was on what is commonly known as bed rest. Her only escape was writing. Writing gave her a purpose to remain calm and it provided her with an escape from the cage, she called a room. The purpose could be found by being a seeking an activity that causes …show more content…
In that time of history women were not allowed to speak against their husbands, therefore I felt the narrator was trapped. Although the story is about gender inequalities, the narrator does show signs of a mental disability. The more I analyzed the short story I believe she could have been suffering from schizophrenia. Minor forms of schizophrenia include illusions and manic episodes. Manic episodes alter perception and reality, therefore I believe the narrator had manic episodes. She mentioned there were patterns and people behind the wallpaper, she felt entitled to let them free. Although I observed different details of the short story, the key concepts are gender roles and inequality women dealt with through history. In modern days, there are forms of inequality based on sex, gender, and
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