The Yellow Wallpaper cont.

Response:

In response to The Yellow Wallpaper, I agree with what Gilman argues but only in some cases. I believe that a domestic life and marriage can become oppressing for women and cause depression. However, I only believe so if there is an imbalance in their life as there is in the character’s life. The character’s every move and treatment is dictated by her husband and her duties. She is meant to be happy with her life because that pleases her husband which is her ultimate duty. However, she becomes depressed and entrapped by it as the yellow wallpaper symbolizes. This can be true about an actual domestic life and marriage. If there is an imbalance and there is no freedom then the women becomes entrapped in her own life. However, I do believe in such things as a happy marriage and a happy domestic life but only when chosen. I believe with The Yellow Wallpaper Gilman is expressing that women need to push out from their domestic lives and life as they choose in order to find happiness and a good state of mind, which I agree because women should be seen as independent instead of dependent.

As for the Gilman’s style, I enjoyed the way she presents her argument. I like seeing the story as the character’s journal because it allows an inside look to the character’s state of mind. I also found the symbolism interesting because I felt as if it was a somewhat empowering and surprising ending when the woman tears down the wallpaper to ultimately free herself. It was a creative and attention grabbing way to express her argument. Overall, I enjoyed reading the piece.

Sincerely,

A Girl and Her Heels

The Yellow Wallpaper

Summary and Analysis:

Charlotte Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper illustrates a woman who is overcome with depression. The story is written from the perspective of the woman herself through her journal which she hides from everyone else. Within her journal it is clear that her husband dictates her every move, from when she has company to where she sleeps (the room with the ugly yellow wallpaper), and believes that she only needs rests and a clear head to feel better.  However, within the room with the yellow wallpaper she begins to become obsessed with its hideous color and supposed hidden pattern. Throughout the story, the woman’s depression and loneliness grows which is expressed through her crying at random times and becoming engrossed by the wallpaper. Her high point is when she sees a woman entrapped by the wallpaper. She then plans to and executes ripping off the wallpaper to help the woman escape. In the end, the woman she helped escape was herself.

                Within The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Gilman is expressing her view on domestic life. Gilman argues that women are oppressed and driven mad by having a domestic life.  She executes her argument through multiple strategies. Gilman employs italics, parenthesis, and repetition in order to emphasize her key issues. However, her most important and impactful strategies are allusion and symbolism. Gilman alludes to the works of Mitchell, who believed in extreme therapies such as electroshock for the mental ill, in order to express how he was incorrect. She also alludes to Mitchell to express that it is not the treatment that needs to be changed in the protagonist’s life but her life itself. Also employed in The Yellow Wallpaper, symbolism is seen throughout the piece. The yellow wallpaper itself is a symbolism of the main character’s life. It is ugly and tearing away, such as she is in her mental state, but within it is a pattern she grows to enjoy. However this pattern grows into an obsession where it turns into an entrapment. The pattern becomes a prison for the woman that the protagonist sees inside. In the symbolic point of view, the wallpaper is the main character’s domestic life. She is entrapped by the duties she is meant to abide by for her husband as the woman is entrapped by the wallpaper. However, at the end of the story when she rips the wallpaper down it is symbolic of her gaining her freedom. The main character is ripping the wallpaper off the wall to free the woman inside but is ultimately taking herself out of the control of her domestic life and freeing herself. This is illustrated in the symbolism and the woman exclaiming to her husband, “I’ve got out at last…in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” She has gone against her husband and away from her domestic life—the wallpaper.

A Girl and Her Heels

The Great Social Evil

In combination with reading A Vindication of the Right’s of Woman, I also read The Great Social Evil. It is a letter written to the editor of the Times by a prostitute in response to a previous letter to the editor by another prostitute. Within the letter the anonymous writer describes how she was raised compared to how the author of the previous letter was raised as a child. She discusses this in order to illustrate to the editor and the audience how she became to be in the position she is in, a prostitute. The author then uses this information to ask why her and other prostitutes are judged and abused by society for what they do. She explains how she is simply another worker and contributor to society. She also states how prostitutes are made to seem evil and sinful by society but should not be judged because of who they were made to be.

                In reaction to this piece, I found it interesting, entertaining, and enlightening. In this time period prostitutes were of a different kind but they also received cruelties for who they were. I believe it is wrong to judge someone without knowing their story and background, which with this letter the author is defending this claim. Society should not judge those who they do not know. The anonymous author was raised differently than those who judged her. It was as if her path was destined to end the way it did which is why I found the piece interesting. I found the piece entertaining because of the sarcastic remarks made by the prostitute, especially her signature which she began with “I remain your humble servant.” I also found the letter enlightening because it made me think about factors that I have not thought about before such as the story behind clothing. I also believed everyone has a background story that made them who they are but to think that there are many layers behind people and things is something I had never taken into consideration. The Great Social Evil was not simply a letter from a prostitute. It was a letter that entertained with its wit and enlightened with its discourse.

Sincerely,

A Girl and Her Heels

A Vindication Of The Right's Of Woman

Mary Wollstonecraft writes A Vindication Of The Right’s Of Woman in order to illustrate the oppressions women face. It is a reaction to Tom Paine’s Rights of Man. She describes how women are denied privileges that men receive, such as political and domestic privileges, which causes women to learn to fend for themselves through finding a man. Within her essay, she hopes to persuade women to fend for themselves and become creatures who rely on the knowledge and strength of their own bodies and minds instead of that of their men. In her introduction, Wollstonecraft begins to discuss how men are giving their privileges, rights, experiences, etcetera while women are denied these things. Women must flirt and become housewives in order to find security, character, and a life.  Wollstonecraft writes about multiple factors that oppress women such as women being seen as objects, women being denied the same education and experiences of men, and women expecting to only want to find a husband. In other words, women are meant to be taught to be dependent and independence is seen as ugly and a burden. In order to illustrate her point, Wollstonecraft alludes to many other works and even criticizes these works for oppressing women—feminist criticism. Some examples of these works include Hamlet, the works of Milton, Dr. John Gregory, and Rousseau. These works show what Wollstonecraft is trying to explain and refute, such as Dr. Gregory who discusses how women should be educated and Rousseau who writes about what is expected of women and how they should behave. Wollstonecraft criticizes the views of women in these works in order to express to women that they must become independent and illustrate to society that women must be given more privileges. She criticizes the views of women’s dependency illustrated through nature, history, philosophy, and other writers.

                In reaction to A Vindication Of The Right’s Of Woman, I agree with what Wollstonecraft is saying. In her time period, even sometimes in the current time period, women feel as if they need to be dependent on their looks, flattery, and flirtatious behavior in order to achieve their goals in life. In Wollstonecraft’s time that one goal in a women’s life was to find a husband to depend on. All these things were taught to females, beginning at young age. To see how much women have progressed since then but how the views have not is astonishing. I believe in today’s society women are growing more independent but the views of women being dependent have not changed. From my knowledge and experiences in today’s society I believe it is still believed that women are meant to be dependent. Though the view is not as extreme as it was in Wollstonecraft’s time, it is still evident.

                Also, it was interesting to see one of the first pieces of feminist criticism and with my base knowledge of feminist criticism today, it has changed and grown into something much more.

Sincerely,

A Girl and Her Heels

Jonathan Swift's The Lady's Dressing Room

           I have finished reading Jonathan Swift’s “The Lady’s Dressing Room.” In summary, the poem is discussing how Swift believes women who make themselves appear beautiful (doll themselves up) are lying, disgusting creatures. Swift despises human pride and believes that women are full of pride which is his reasoning behind writing the poem. If you have not read the poem I will summarize it for you.

In the beginning stanza Celia, a beautiful woman, appears from her dressing room after taking five hours to get ready. In response her lover, Strephon, goes inside her dressing room to take a look around. The stanzas following the first illustrate what Strephon sees, each stanza making Celia appear dirty and grotesque. Some examples of what Strephon sees include: cosmetics made from Celia’s dead dog, smelly used towels, tweezers that pluck her facial hair, and a dandruff filled comb. Swift even alludes to Celia’s chest as Pandora’s Box (the first woman in Greek mythology whose box contained all evils) to express Celia’s dressing room and Celia herself as horrific. In the concluding stanza, Swift discusses how he views women and hopes that Strephon can now view women in the same way—lying, deceitful, grotesque creatures whose hide their true appearance.

In response to the piece, I was horrified and angered. Swift illustrates women as creatures who take too much pride in their appearance and thus are deceitful people. He spends the majority of his poem degrading women. The two lines that hit me the most are the last two which read, “Such order from confusion sprung/Such gaudy tulips raised from dung.” These two lines express Swift’s whole perspective on the women population. Women take too much pride in themselves but are truly nothing but dung, dirt, crap. To think that one poem could contain such degrading and unfathomable expressions is incomprehensible to me. Swift is a clear misogynist who knows nothing about the true intentions of a woman, such as myself. I do take pride in my appearance. On occasions I take the time (not the exaggerated five hours that Swift sarcastically writes) to make myself appear a certain way. I do not do this to deceive men or because I believe myself to be better than others. I do so because I am a woman. I am a feminine being who likes to show that femininity through my choice in clothing, and though I am feminine that does not make me part of the patriarchal society. (I believe that even in a dress I can dominate in what is supposed to be a male role, a career field, strength, hard labor, etc.) Though I take pride in my appearance as Celia does I am not deceiving nor am I hiding my grotesque nature (as Swift would like to say). Swift is simply a man who believes in a patriarchal society where the women must not overstep their bounds. Taking pride in appearance or even the work of a woman would be impossible for Swift and he believes that any woman who does so herself is simply a “…gaudy tulip raised from dung” but I believe Swift to be the dung that those beautiful tulips are tainted with and his character Strephon to be the average Neanderthal that follows along.

            ~A Girl and Her Heels

Feminist Movements

While researching the feminist movements, I found it interesting how different the attitudes of the women were in the three movements. In the first movement the women were first breaking away from the “average housewife” attitude by fighting for something more—equality—such as suffrage. The women were reserved and formal in their approach. In the later part of the second movement the women began to become more inventive with their protests and actions. For example, instead of holding a convention such as the Seneca Falls convention in the first movement the women held their own version of the Miss America pageant to express that it was a way to make women seem as simple as sexual objects. In this version of protest, the women threw objects that they believed made them sexual objects and crowned a sheep as the winner to express that it was like being judged as animals. This is interesting to me because it is a very different approach from that of the first movement. It also makes me think if this new approach receives better or worse results than that of the first movement. The new, direct approach continued to the third movement and seemed to grow. Instead of focusing on what has happened for women already, women were focusing on how small these improvements were and what a disgrace it was to not jump from little rights to all. I find this interesting because I believe progress comes in little steps. I do not believe that progress can be made in one big leap, which makes me believe that the third movement will have little results because the focus is unclear.

                With what I found interesting, it has changed my view of what I witness in terms of men and women. Realizing how little rights there were to begin with, I am thankful for those little progresses that were made in the past. I believe there is a lot to change in today’s society but looking at what happens in the current, third movement I wonder if the approach is too direct. It makes me wonder the impact that women are having on the view of society, the view of men. If women are too direct in their approach to changing today’s society I believe it could make women take a step back. It could bring more discrimination and more hatred if women are constantly aggressively attacking members of society, especially men. I understand that men would feel the discrimination and fight for their rights too if the patriarchy were to be reversed but I think that men will see this aggressive approach as an attack and come in with more hatred. I know that in some instances an aggressive approach is the best approach but sometimes I believe that approaches like that of the past two movements needs to be taken to be seen seriously as a member of society. I am not saying that because some women take an aggressive approach today that they deserve the discrimination and hatred. Women do not deserve discrimination or hatred. No one deserves discrimination. I am saying that compared to the past two movements, it seems as if the third has a possibility of providing less results.

However, this does not change what I read or experience. The experiences I have had because I am a young lady in society do not change. These experiences were undeserved, harsh, and invalid. It is for these experiences and what I read about others’ experiences that I see why women would take an aggressive approach. They are fed up and angry. Most of the time I do not believe the phrase, “You brought this on yourself” but I believe with this movement many will use this phrase towards women. In my opinion, fighting for rights is a worthy fight and inequality is not brought on by someone but by discrimination.

Sincerely,

A Girl and Her Heels