Female Disempowerment in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

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Female disempowerment in "The Yellow Wallpaper."
The importance of literary criticism can never be over emphasized in the society. It is through literary criticism that literature has been able to grow, developing in different ways and manner to produce some of the amazing and great literary works that exist today. All authors in this field prepare for criticism before the publishing of their literature works and those who have learnt the skill of appreciating this aspect, have in one way, or another benefited in terms of skill improvement. However, sometimes the critics might not be able to appreciate the full scope of some works and might end up giving out their opinion without considering some aspects of those works as it has been seen on many occasions. This does not change the fact that what is given is their opinion and are entitled to it. Gilman’s "The Yellow All-Paper" is an example of work that has undergone much criticism that many would say did not consider all its parts and aspects. A large number of its critics revolve around the issue of insanity of the narrator in this narrative. These are claims that cannot be just be dismissed since all these scholars and authors have their evidences from the narrative, of the narrator’s deteriorating mental state. However, an analysis of this narrative reveals that this narrative is more about another subject that many are not ready discuss in our society values; the subject of female disempowerment.
To begin with, the narrative through the character of John’s wife the narrator, draws a clear picture of how women were perceived as the weaker sex. They were considered inferior to their counterparts, the men in all aspects and held the lower position in the society. This was done to the extent that women themselves started accepting this as their place in the society. For instance, in the narration the narrator finds herself not in agreement on many occasion with her husband John, including on his mode of treatment, but she feels not good enough to ask nor complain about it, she cannot neglect proper self-control, even if it hurts her. She feels that her husband does not believe she is sick and attributes that to the reason as to why she is not healing. Her response to this shows how low the opinion of a woman in this society is held. She feels there is nothing she can do about it since her husband and brother had already convinced friends and relative that she was not sick but just a temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency. She feels powerless to respond to this. This shows how women are disempowered, even to voice their opinions on matters of their bodies and health. By her acceptance of her husband’s authority without questioning nor complaining portrays oppression and the subjectivity women have been enforced to, even the marriage institution. Mary views the house in Yellow Wallpaper as being strange for being empty; she compares it to " image of dispossession that points to what Gilman cannot voice about the subjection of women, not only in literary terms, but politically" (6). John treats his wife in a manner that is rather belittling, he does not pay much attention to her opinions; he actually laughs at her when she raises the issues about the wallpaper and sees it as her giving away to her fancies. She tries to engage him in a conversation concerning her health and condition at one time late at night and what she gets is a dismissal of her concerns with promises, promises of having a talk about the issue in the morning that are not kept.
In addition, the emotional behaviors of the narrator in many ways can be attributed to her dissatisfaction with everything that is going on around her. If this is so, the claims of behaviors of the narrator at the end of this story by the critics of the yellow wallpaper cannot be sufficient to prove her insanity. It is very clear in the narration that John’s wife holds much rage towards John because of the way he treats her. According to Knight, her behaviors in the end, which many interpreted as signs of her insanity, "may not have been a form of insanity, but rather a deliberate act of rebellion--an expression of the tremendous rage she feels toward her husband John." Her behavior in the end may have been efforts of her trying to communicate to her husband on the dissatisfying issues she had, what he had refused to hear from her from the first place. Many times she did not agree with her husband on different things, including his mode of treatment, her visiting of her cousins among others. On all these matters, her husband does not listen or at least refuses to listen to her, he refuses to hear her opinion and instead treats her as a child. He also does not believe she is sick, and her behavior, therefore, may have been purposed to force him to hear and see what he had denied f...