Woman Hollering Creek Analysis

Improved Essays
Oppression is by definition maltreatment, and in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Woman Hollering Creek” it is a very prominent subject. The authors’ emphasize on the unjustness the women endure by their husbands, although in quite inverse ways. In Woman Hollering Creek, Cleófilas is neglected and mistreated by her new husband Juan. He severely physically abuses her, however she wants to maintain her lifestyle for the sake of their child and because of the fear. “When the moment came, and he slapped her once, and then again, and again, until the lip split and bled an orchid of blood, she didn’t fight back” (Cisneros 460). He degrades her by treating her with no respect, and asserts his power over her because she is seen as a weak woman. “He had thrown a book. Hers. …show more content…
The repression the woman faces in “The Wallpaper” is in a more indirect approach. She is not subjected to physical violence, however, one can classify it as mental suppression. He surpasses her own judgments about her condition and worsening condition, believing that she does not know the best course of treatment. When she shares her opinions on the matter of her condition from a personal view he denounces her thoughts and replies: “Can you trust me as a physician when I tell you so” (Gilman 93). John views his wife as an inferior being, too simple minded to know what is best for her. When she shares He speaks to her in demeaning tones calling her degrading things such as “blessed little goose” and “bless her little heart” (Gilman 88-93). The condescending words he uses to address her emphasizes that he believes her to be subordinate, ultimately condemning her to inequality. The similarity of gender inequality in both stories is predominantly expressed by the women’s husbands’ actions towards them. Although different extremities the author’s accentuate the oppression of women under the authority of male

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The woman should follow the men in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and people should follow the rules of their community blindly of the society. The protagonist in “The Yellow Wallpaper” has external conflict with her husband, who is also her physician and treats her condition without considering her input: “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (Gilman 86). This is the culture of that time when woman was considering being house wife who cooks, cleans, and raise children. She is prescribed a rest cute, believing that woman should not use their brain and rest her mind. The narrator follows her husband’s direction; however, knows what is best for her and secretly writes her journal.…

    • 1055 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I untwisted the expensive lipsticks to their full length and smushed a bear on the top before recapping them” (81). It left Clemencia satisfied that she was able to disrupt a woman’s entire life, thinking her marriage was wonderful and that she had a great family life, to have it all come crashing down. She thinks, “I got a strange satisfaction wandering about the house leaving them in places only she would look” (81). Clemencia ruins these wives lives, and even if it is not direct violence, Clemencia can do a lot of damage to the marriage that can turn it into an abusive relationship for the…

    • 1701 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cleofilas, a name of a Mexican martyr, is the prototype of a woman suffering for love. According to the model she learnt from her ancestors and from the telenovelas, Cleofilas considers that a woman’s role is to love and to suffer for love. She lives her life as a married woman in isolation between her neighbors Dolores and Soledad, pain and loneliness, who suffer because of the loss of their husbands and sons by death or other circumstances. It seems like “the women on Woman Hollering Creek suffer much from their dealings with the men in their lives” (Short stories for students 393). Cleofilas and her two neighbors share the same belief that the only meaning a woman can have in life is through a man.…

    • 1002 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Treichler, Paula A.. “Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in "the Yellow Wallpaper"”. Tulsa Studies in Women 's Literature 3.1/2 (1984): 61–77. Web... The same response was given to the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” when her physician husband took her into isolation and slowly stripped away her…

    • 1508 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The role of women in society has changed drastically over the centuries. Women went from being subordinate to their husbands to having the right to not only live their lives freely but have minds of their own. In the stories “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The story of an Hour” both authors use a historical setting to show the place that women had in society. Both authors suggest that a women can feel trapped in her marriage and lose her sense of self. In the story the “Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator who was unamed felt so trapped by her husband that she was drove deeper and deeper into insanity.…

    • 909 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    All by Herself During the writing of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, she goes to great depths and lengths to describe the young, upper-middle-class woman who is newly married to a physician named John and a mother yet a nameless narrator who has a character of what she describes herself as, “a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 64). How would one expect the personality and character of a woman who is sent to a quiet and empty house, by her husband, be? A character analysis of the narrator and wife of John, reveals throughout this writing her depression, how she overcomes it while she is being isolated from the world, and how she regains her freedom of thoughts and actions.…

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Wallpaper With a Thousand Words “The Yellow Wallpaper” is an important story, but digging has to be done to see so. The author Charlotte Perkins displays a feminist interpretation in an impressive way. Her use of metaphors brings out the true meaning behind this story. The wallpaper represents the way women are treated in our society, and the author tells a story of a “madwoman” to represent this overall theme. The house is the whole backbone to the story and is a one of the metaphors used.…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the story, The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman the story is told through a series of journal entries belonging to the main character. She along with her husband John, who is a physician, are on a holiday trip residing in a colonial estate that is described to be a beautiful place with marvelous gardens yet, the narrator states that the home possess an eerie aura that leaves her with an unsettling feeling that her husband claims is due to her illness., which is the reason for their trip. The main charter is being treated for a,” temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency,” (Gillman, 1999, pg. 74) that requires her to be in constant rest as well as a scheduled medical prescription that requires her to take pills…

    • 1021 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    John's Oppressive Husband

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Another instance where John proves to be insensitive to his wife would be when she builds up the courage to speak to him about her fears and leaving their “vacation home”. John answers her by saying “What is it, little girl?”(Gilman 93) this is not how the modern husband would respond to his wife considering they would be about the same age. In continuation, the narrator says “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage” (Gilman 85). In the average marriage a husband would not belittle his wife by laughing at her and the fact that the narrator was so at home with these actions just shows that this is not the first time it has happened. The narrator is submissive to her oppressive husband John and it becomes evident even to…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As the narrator begins to descend into madness, her need to escape from control over her life shifts from her husband to the figure behind the paper. The attempt to rescue the woman behind the paper becomes the narrators main objective in life and is a symbol for her oppression and confinement. The attempt of the narrator to rescue the woman from the wallpaper represents how futile it was for woman to attempt to protest the rest cure. Because woman had such an infantile position in society, they were unable to protest how much pain the rest cure caused them. In the same way, as much paper as the narrator was able to tare off the wall, she was unable to free the woman behind the wallpaper.…

    • 1441 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    She hates the wallpaper at first but becomes more intrigued with it when she sees a woman trapped within its design. The narrator describes this woman by saying “And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern—it strangles so,” (Gilman, par. 192). She sympathizes with this image as she herself feels trapped and unable to escape her situation. Mary Ellen Snodgrass comments on the narrator’s realization, writing, “Before her complete loss of control, the viewer witnesses a prophecy—the shape of an incarcerated woman in the decor, a doppelgänger image of herself as a powerless, suppressed victim of patriarchy reduced to two dimensions and pasted to the wall,” (Snodgrass).…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, is a first person gothic narrative that explores a woman’s mental experience on her own mental illness and how she is treated based on her demographics by the people around her. The story was placed in the late 19th century, in a time period when mental illness and mutual respect for women wasn’t entirely acknowledged as a whole. The narrator was brought into a new house with her husband, and senses an odd feeling in the home from the start. Her treatment for depression is based on her barely being active. She is placed into a room with no means of interest other than the non-definite patterned wallpaper in which she slowly begins to see patterns of other woman being trapped.…

    • 667 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Woman in the Wallpaper “The Yellow Wallpaper” is set at a time when women could not easily flourish. Treated as less then men, many suffered at the hands of medicine as the narrator does. Her husband, her brother and even her husband’s sister who “thinks it is the writing which made [her] sick”(481) have more control over her recovery than she does.…

    • 1279 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    To distract herself from thinking about her sickness, the narrator turns to the wallpaper in the room, which “pronounces enough to constantly irritate and provoke study”, foreshadowing an obsession with the wallpaper. In the first entry of the narrator’s journal she continues to doubt her husband’s treatment. Being isolated with no one to talk to and nothing to do does not lessen her anxiety, in fact, it only feeds into it. The narrator personifies the wallpaper using a simile comparing the pattern to “a broken neck and two bulbous eyes” (“The Yellow Wall-Paper” 492). She also thinks she’s able to see “a formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind” the “front design”…

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses many different symbols to illustrate the subjection of women in marriage. Women of the 19th century felt restricted to the roles that they were expected to play in marriage. This short story really shows the distinction of the domestic functions of the wife and the active work of the husband. The author makes the narrator really fixate her attention to the yellow wallpaper that is in her room, and she gains a fascination/hatred for it.…

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays