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Resistance in The Yellow Wallpaper Essay

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The narrator recognizes her captivity in stating that John hardly lets me stir without special direction (41). The room she stays in is isolated and away from the rest of the household. She is able to look at all things positive with the room she detests. It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore (34-35), but she overlooks other more ominous signs of her confinement such as the bars at her window, the gate at the top of the stars, steel rings on the wall and a nailed down bed. The description of her cell, versus the reality of it, is an example of the restriction women had in those days. They were free to see things as they wanted, but there was no real chance at a woman changing her roles and place in society.

Although the narrator initially accepts her situation in society, she eventually rebels again it showing resistance. Her rooms yellow wallpaper becomes a mirrored state of her own existence. Once she realizes that the wallpaper has two patterns, the front one made of bars and the back pattern a woman stooping down and creating about (201), she becomes anxious to fee the barred woman, and herself, from confinement. Once free the author is content as she states Ive got out at last, said I, in spite of you and Jane. And Ive pulled off most of the paper, so you cant put me back! (261-262). She has no intentions of going back to her previous submissive state. This is demonstrated by her ability to crawl over her husbands fainted body in order to continue on her path.

The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts one womens struggle against the traditional female role into which society attempts to force her and the societal reaction to this act. The mental constraints placed upon the narrator, even more so than the physical ones, are what ultimately drive her insane. Also depicted is how a woman's own personal strength can contribute to the expression of women by giving her a voice in regards to her own personal interests

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. I wandered lonely as a cloud. The Harbrace Anthology of Literature. 4th ed. Eds. Jon C. Stott et al. Toronto: Nelson, 2006. 987-999.

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