Feminism and gender roles have been
a common theme in many of the texts we have read. In the first three stories (“Yellow
Wallpaper,” “The Revolt of Mother,” and “Trifles) I have chosen to analyze, the
women are portrayed in stereotypical roles in a patriarchal society; but
there are events that occur in the each story that create an insight for each woman that
allows them to “break free” from the male domination. In last narrative of this critique (“Flowering
Judas”) the author depicts two very different types of women and shows how their different approaches to life affect how men treat them and how they reciprocate those feelings.
There are many parallels between
the life of Charlotte Gilman and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. “Despite her unease about becoming a wife and
mother”(203), Gilman married and had a child.
Some of her true feelings about being a woman are reflected in her writing of “Yellow
Wallpaper,” such as her obvious disdain for the conventions of marriage and the
subordinate position she feels marriage places a women in. In the story, a woman and her husband are
staying at a house in the country while she recovers from a mental
breakdown. The husband is, “a physician of high
standing,”(205) and he believes that the woman is not sick; that her illness is just nerves
and she just needs to rest and is “absolutely forbidden to work”(205). In response to his diagnosis she tells the
reader, “Personally, I disagree with [his] ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work,
with excitement and change would do me good.
But what is one to do?” (205).
Gilman shows how the male’s dominance and his belief that his superior
intellect and wisdom, lead him to misjudge what the true problem is with his
wife. She writes in her journal but “he
hates to have her write a word”(207), so she is restricted in her mental
freedom as well as the physical limitations they have given her. Gilman is painting a
picture of a prison where this woman cannot be allowed to escape physically or
even in a world created in her mind. The ultimate insanity the woman in the story will suffer, is a product of the repression to adequately express herself
and inability to be make her own decisions. Gilman uses
this woman as a symbol to women everywhere to enable them to let their voices
be heard from under the domination of men.
Similar to Gilman, Mary Wilkins
Freeman uses a background that is familiar to her own in writing “The Revolt of
Mother.” She grew up in a religious home
with a family that each fit into their respective “roles.” Freeman illustrates men’s domination in a
different light in her story. The father
has promised the mother a new home since the day they were married but she has never mentioned it since, expecting him to keep his promise. She had fulfilled all of her duties as a wife and never spent
more money than was necessary so they could build the house; but when they were at last able to
build the home, he began building a barn.
The authority of men isn’t as overt in this story because the father’s
character is very quiet and doesn’t communicate with the mother, yet
that lack of communication is how Freeman demonstrates the secondhand role that
women play in this particular society.
The mother asks her son if he knew what the father was planning when he
was going to build the farm in place of the house and when he responds positively, she asked why he
didn’t tell her. He replied, “Didn’t
think ‘twould do no good”(147). In excluding the wife and confiding in his son, the idea has
been passed along to the son that women don’t need to be involved or
troubled with things of importance. However, one of
the great things that Freeman allows the reader to see, is how her character
experiences an enlightenment along with a moment of courage and how this event
changes her family’s life. When the
minister came over after the mother had moved the family into the barn the speaker
states, “her eyes showed the spirit that her meek front had covered for a
lifetime”(156); she had found who she really was and didn’t feel the need to
mask her emotions, as she felt she had needed to do before just because she was a woman.
In “Trifles,” Susan Glaspell uses
one event to show how differently the minds of men and women work. When the various men and women enter the home
of the Wright’s to inspect the murder they each start picking up on various clues. One of the most telling scenes between the different ideas of the men and the women is in the
kitchen, when the county attorney washes his hands and there aren’t any clean
towels. “Not much of a housekeeper would
you say, ladies?” Mrs. Hale, “There’s a great deal of work to be done on a farm
. . .those towels get dirty awful quick.
Men’s hands aren’t always as clean as they might be.” County Attorney, “Ah, loyal to your sex, I
see”(434). This scene sets the tone for
the rest of the story. As the women
begin to look around the kitchen they begin to feel sympathetic for the
terrible situation Mrs. Wright was in, as her husband was obviously oppressive and smothered the “lively”(435) girl she used to be. They observe the quilt she was working on and
the poor stitching; from the stitches they can tell that she was nervous about
something. Mrs. Hale decides to fix some
of the stitching on the quilt. When she goes to the thread box to gather more thread she encounters a dead
bird, who was killed by it's neck being broken; much the same as Mr. Wright’s. The women both know that it couldn’t have
been Mrs. Wright who killed the bird, but it was most likely the doing of Mr.
Wright. As the men are trying to search for concrete
evidence against Mrs. Wright the women hide the bird to protect Mrs.
Wright. They begin to think about all of
the things they could have done to help her, to befriend her and in turn they
feel as if they had committed a crime.
Glaspell shows how most are typically more sympathetic, and these women show this by trying to blame themselves for the
murder that was committed. Their feelings of guilt add to their lack of
desire to tell the men what they know. Though the women believe she may have
committed the murder, in the end they do not tell the men what they know. The women believed the greater crime was in the man who took the life and
spirit from her. The men and the women
in this narrative both see the story from different perspectives, taking sides
with their own sex. Because of this
gender bias, the story never has an official conclusion.
Katherine Anne Porter depicts two primary female characters in “Flowering Judas,” who have extremely
contradictory personalities. In the
1920’s when this story was published, there were several major advances
happening in the women’s right movement.
Porter incorporates these societal changes by demonstrating how the
personalities of women were beginning to change. The protagonist is Laura, who has come to
Mexico to support a romantic ideal she has of the Mexican revolution. She avoids any emotional commitment or true involvement in anything in her life.
Laura is disgusted by Braggioni, as well as other men’s attempts to
romance her. She cares little for her teaching, is struggling with her once
firm Catholic beliefs and is not participating in the revolution because of
conviction, but simply because she has no where else to go. “Denying everything, she may walk anywhere in
safety, she looks at everything without amazement,”(553) and allowing nothing
to stir her emotions. Laura is an independent
woman who doesn’t show her fear or a need for others.
Porter then shows the opposite type of woman,
what would be a more stereotypical woman of the time before women's rights- Braggioni’s wife. She is supportive of Braggioni and,
“organizes unions . . . walks in picket lines, even speaks at meetings” (555),
and then “employs her leisure lying on the floor weeping because there are so
many women in the world, and only one husband for her” (555). Though in public she is liberal, in private she is still very much in the past. Braggioni insists on his wife being
“virtuous” and faithful, but allowing him his freedom and when she doesn’t stop
crying over the issue, he leaves her.
She is totally devoted to Braggioni, in need of love and attention and
when he is absent she grieves. The
ultimate form of her love for him is when he returns and there is a moment of
reconciliation. She asks for his
forgiveness and she washes his feet. Mrs.
Braggioni’s worship of her husband is the antithesis of Laura’s outlook on everything in life. By showing these
two extremes Porter shows that both behaviors have their dangers. The outcome of Braggioni’s wife if she continues on in her ways is fairly
straightforward, and unfortunately many women suffer from being in a
male-dominated society and do not see any other way to function. However, it may be worse to end up like
Laura; unable to connect people or things that would bring happiness in order
to keep one’s independence and solidarity.
Feminism and gender is one of the greatest binaries written about in literature; and it will continue to be as people are constantly trying to understand why men and women do what they do.
Feminism and gender is one of the greatest binaries written about in literature; and it will continue to be as people are constantly trying to understand why men and women do what they do.
