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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page research paper/essay that discusses Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" (1899), which can be understood as indicative of women's role in late nineteenth century society. This narrative portrays the way in which Victorian patriarchal attitudes served to marginalize women. Male authority trivialized female voices and regarded women more as children in adult bodies than as adult themselves. In addition to this element, Gilman's short story also introduces the way in which the medical professional interacted with women, supporting the cultural paradigm that marginalized women and added the authority of the male doctor to the social boundaries that keep women from having any sense of adult autonomy. Bibliography lists 4 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khmaryw.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
way in which Victorian patriarchal attitudes served to marginalize women. Male authority trivialized female voices and regarded women more as children in adult bodies than as adult themselves. In addition
to this element, Gilmans short story also introduces the way in which the medical professional interacted with women, supporting the cultural paradigm that marginalized women and added the authority
of the male doctor to the social boundaries that keep women from having any sense of adult autonomy. Gilmans protagonist is the unnamed narrator of the short story. The
fact that no one in the story, neither the woman, her husband or any secondary character uses the narrators name is one of the many indications of her social status,
which is definitively in the margins of society, not as a participant in the mainstream. The story charts the mental decline of this woman as her grip on reality loosens
and she slides into insanity. Critics have offered numerous interpretations of Gilmans story and how it should be understood. For example, originally, the story was seen as type of "gothic
tale, a haunted house fiction" (Roth 145). However, a feminist reading of the story sets the narrative within the context of the gender expectations of that era. In the nineteenth
century and also well into the twentieth, what historian Barbara Welter refers to as the "Cult of True Womanhood" characterized how women were seen and largely how they saw themselves.
According to this societal ideal, the features defining a "true" woman were "piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity" (Welter). Women were pictured as both "passive" and "submissive," as well as "timid,
doubtful and...dependent" (Welter). They were encouraged by society to exist in a "perpetual childhood" that accepted the dominance of their husband as if he were their parent rather than a
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