Midterm-Feminism

Feminism and gender roles have been a common theme in many of the texts we have read.  In the stories I have chosen to analyze, the women are portrayed in a stereotypical roles in a patriarchal society; but there is something that occurs in the story that creates insight for them that allows them to “break free” from the male domination.  The three stories I chose to analyze are: “Yellow Wall Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Revolt of Mother by Mary Wilkins Greenman and Trifles by Susan Glaspell; because the women in each story are in very different circumstances, yet the dynamics in relationships between men and women are similarly illustrated. 

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 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 women in.  In the story, the woman and her husband are staying at a house in the country while she recovers from a mental breakdown.  He is, “a physician of high standing,”(205) and he believes that she is not sick; that it 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 their 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.  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.  Her ultimate insanity is a product of the repression to adequately express herself and inability to be free.  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, Freeman uses a background that is familiar to her in writing “The Revolt of Mother.”  She grew up in a religious home with a family that 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 got married and she had never complained, had fulfilled all of her duties as a wife and never spent more than she had to so they could build the house; but when they were able to build it, he began building a barn instead.  The authority of men isn’t as overt in this story because the father’s character is very quiet and doesn’t really 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 and when he responds positively, she asked why he didn’t tell her.  He replied, “Didn’t think ‘twould do no good”(147).  The father feels that the son can be confided in about the matter, but the idea has been passed along to the son as well that women don’t need to be involved or troubled with things like that.  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 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 as a woman.  However, just because she had a newfound liberation, didn’t mean that she still didn’t feel respect and love for her husband.

In the last story, "Trifles," 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 start picking up on various clues.  One of the most telling scenes 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 can set the tone for the rest of the story.  As the women begin to look around the kitchen start to feel sympathetic for the terrible situation Mrs. Wright was in as her husband was obviously oppressive, and smothered what “lively”(435) girl she used to be.  Though the women believe she may have committed the murder, in the end they do not tell the men what they know, because they believed the greater crime was in the man who took the life and spirit from her.