In fact, the house itself seems designed for men. Larger-than-life mansions were typically symbols of masculine aggression and competitiveness, while it’s being a "hereditary estate" reminds us it was probably passed down to men in the family.
It is immediately apparent in the story that the narrator is treated as being inferior to many men, particularly her husband John. Being a physician, he has made a ‘schedule’ for her. She is told to stay in bed, suppress her imagination, and most importantly to discontinue her writing, even though it makes her feels better, but she does not say a word. Her schedule also makes her unable to show her true personality.
The readers are the only ones who really know what the narrator is like, "Personally I disagree with their ideas," she writes, "Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.” From this repetition of “personally” we can assume that the narrator is very independent. This statement, "What is one to do?" implies a lack of self-confidence and a feeling of inferiority. She speaks as though her opinions do not count in any way. However, she is very accepting of this, which was often the general feeling of women at the time. The narrator belittles herself several more times throughout the story "I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already".
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is driven by the narrator’s enthusiasm to interpret the wallpaper and realise that it symbolizes something that affects her directly. The wallpaper develops its symbolism throughout the story. At first it seems merely unpleasant; it is ripped and an “unclean yellow.” The worst part of it is the formless pattern, which fascinates the narrator as she attempts to figure out how it is organized. After staring at the paper for hours, she sees a ghostly sub-pattern behind the main pattern visible only in a certain light. She then sees a woman, which could be a sign that her mental state is deteriorating, or it could be a projection of the narrator onto the wallpaper. This woman puts an element of mystery and excitement in the narrator’s life and it gives her something to think about other than her own health. The desperate woman is constantly crawling and stooping, looking for an escape from behind the main pattern, which has come to resemble bars of a cage. The bars of the cage can symbolise the barred windows in the narrator’s room which in turn symbolise jail. The wallpaper can also represent society’s view in which the narrator finds herself to be trapped by.
When the narrator finally identifies herself with the woman trapped in the wallpaper, she is able to see that other women are forced to creep and hide behind the domestic patterns of their lives, and that she herself is the one in need of rescue. The horror of this story is that the narrator must lose herself to understand herself. She has untangled the pattern of her life, but she has torn herself apart by getting free of it. An odd detail at the end of the story reveals how much the narrator has sacrificed. Now she is horribly “free” of the constraints of her marriage, her society, and her own efforts to repress her mind.
The narrator has no name which could show the lack of identity and recognition women were used to in the nineteenth century. However, the fact that the narrator has no name could mean that Charlotte Perkins Gilman wanted the narrator to symbolise all women at that time. The narrator seems to have a lack of self esteem and is unsure about her thoughts and what she wants to say. This can be seen when she breaks up her sentences using hyphens, “I wonder – I begin to think – oh I wish John would take me away from here!”
The narrator is free of her constraints of her marriage as she has detached herself from her husband, John. While she would usually call him “John” or “my husband” she now refers to him as “that man”, which can underline the fact that her strength as a woman and also her strength as a character has increased.
The end of the story shows a switch in power between the narrator and John. At the beginning John had all the power, however at the end the narrator has power over him. We can see this when John comes into the locked room and faints in her path, “now why should that man have fainted?”, […] “I had to creep over him every time” which can also suggest the fact that women can gain temporary control over men, but they will never seem to be free of them.
At the end of the story the narrator believes she has won, “I’ve got out at last” by setting the woman free from behind the main pattern of the wallpaper. By setting the woman free from behind the wallpaper it can also suggest to the narrator is being set free as well. The narrator made a huge sacrifice in escaping and as a result, at the end of the story, we see that she has lost her narrative; her writing has become less fluent and fragmented, with no structured pattern. This can be seen on the last two pages with the extensive use of exclamation marks. There would be many social consequences of the narrator’s actions. By setting free the woman, it implies that the narrator and the woman are very much the same, as they are both trapped; the yellow wallpaper is trapping the woman, but the barred windows and society are trapping the narrator.
Unlike the narrator in the “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Tanya in “Twenty-six Men and a Girl” is not trapped physically. However, she is trapped by the twenty-six men because they idolise her but her feelings are not taken into account. The twenty-six men make a bet with a soldier about Tanya. None of the men think about what Tanya would say about their bet on her. At the end of the story when Tanya and the soldier “emerge from the cellar”, Tanya believed it meant something, “her eyes are radiant with joy and happiness” but the soldier was “just the same as ever”. In the nineteenth century women’s feelings didn’t seem to be as important.
Compared to the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” Tanya has much more of an identity in the story as she has a name, and we learn about her physical appearance, “small pink face”. However we do not learn anything else about Tanya in the story, only that she is 16 years of age. The twenty-six men idolise Tanya, but do not know anything about her past, personality or interests. She visits them once a day and that is how the men know her. However, we can see that Tanya has a positive effect on the men. When the narrator is writing about Tanya, the language used is more optimistic and attractive than before; “heavy ceiling” compared to “laughing blue eyes”.
Men of the nineteenth century were aware that they were superior to women. Men treated women with that in mind and society’s expectations were built around that. The soldier is very disrespectful towards women throughout the story, “Do you make use of them?” The soldier generally sees most women as sexual objects. However, the twenty six men don’t see Tanya as a sexual object but as a belonging, “our Tanya”. Throughout the story Tanya is also seen as an “idol”, this makes Tanya seem as a symbol to the men. This is the opposite of “The Yellow Wallpaper” where the narrator is treated as a child. The word “idol” makes Tanya seem like an artificial creation, the repetition of the word shows how unreal this representation of Tanya is.
The story has been building up to the moment when it is inevitable that Tanya is going to lose some of her power at the end of the story as she has been described as being perfect throughout the story, however we know that no one is perfect. The men make Tanya seem even more goddess-like with their descriptions of her. At the end of the story the men change how they speak about Tanya, “We will find out how pure and chaste the vessel is” which takes away any of Tanya’s sexual identity away.
Tanya is a victim of double standards when the twenty-six men seem to like and admire the fact that the soldier sleeps with many women, however they “jeer at her loudly and viciously, like wild beasts” when Tanya comes out of the cellar with the soldier. This can be associated with fact that women of the nineteenth century could not choose what they wanted to do or who with, without the fear of being ridiculed and judged.
At the beginning of the story the narrator says “when my eye grows dim… and my faith in women flickers…” which symbolises the loss in faith in women due to the fact that women cannot be friends as they always compete with one another. There is also repetition of this phrase at the end of the story, which shows a circular structure. This suggests that whenever women put each other down, the narrator can look at the rose and she will remember what the woman did for her. The men in the story come between the both women, “She and I never spoke to each other” they are rivals for the men’s power and attention. The narrator believes that women cannot express positive thoughts about one another as it goes against society.
The woman is presented has having power throughout the story. Firstly the men ‘worshiped’ her, “They brought her flowers to the front door;” She also seems to have power over all the girls in the village. The story tells us that “she reigned alone” nobody ever sees the other girls showing that they too could be intimidated by her. We can also assume that she has power of the village as at the end of the story that the last rose “for 200 miles round there was not a rose to be bought for love or money” was “promised” to her.
It could be said that the women in “The Woman’s Rose” are not respected by the men in the village in the same way as Tanya is not respected by the twenty-six men. The men in the village seem very fickle as once a new woman comes to the village they forget about the original woman they worshiped and turn to worship the other woman. The men ask the narrator to marry them, but they are not sincere, they don’t really love her, they just fight for her attention,
“I did not know it was simply a fashion, which one man had set and the rest followed unreasoningly”.
The rose in the story is very symbolic, like the wallpaper in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. It represents faith in women, showing that they can be friends and have solidarity. The woman gave the rose to the narrator showing the unity of women. Olive Schreiner has emphasised the colour white as the colour is shown through the rose, showing purity and innocence this could be seen as a characteristic of the woman as “she was dressed in pure white”. However, the narrator is wearing black which shows the contrast not only in colours, but in personalities. Nevertheless the rose and the men bring both the women together.
From the three stories that I have studied, I have learnt that in the nineteenth century many women were not treated equally. In the nineteenth century many men believed themselves to be more intelligent than women. This was a fair conclusion as women were rarely educated beyond reading and writing and where banned form higher education institutions. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator’s husband is very patronising. He treats her as if he was her father, he refers to the narrator as “little girl” which suggests that she is not seen as a real adult. Many men also believed that they could idolise a girl one day and then the next pretend she did not exist. In “The Woman’s Rose” the men leave the woman for the narrator as she is “new”. In the stories I have studied, the female characters are portrayed as being worshipped or victimised. They all respond to their characters role in different ways, suggesting that women could not be themselves in the nineteenth century.
