The Bluest Eye Essay, Research Paper

Scott

Motherhood: A Woman s Prison

In the early years of the past century, women were perceived as being

weak-minded individuals who needed a man to survive. This particular idea that

women should be submissive to men was strongly stressed in Theodore Roosevelt s

Address to the National Congress of Mothers in 1905. In this address Roosevelt made many statements about the role of women. One of the most significant quotes was that the primary duty of the husband is to be the home-maker, the bread-winner for his wife and children and that the primary duty of the woman is to be the helpmeet, the housewife, and the mother. He goes on to say that women should not be trained for careers outside the home and concentrate on her children s moral standings while being submissive to her husband. Since it was also found to be unnecessary for women to have a higher degree of education, most women understood this assumption that critical thinking and outside jobs were for the men and morals along with motherhood were dedicated to themselves. While many women accepted this assumption during the

early to mid-twentieth century, others such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman believed

otherwise. In Gilman s short story The Yellow Wallpaper if you look behind the general story line, the details show how she felt women were being treated. Gilman believed that the assumption which displays a woman s role in life as only being a hardworking mother who teaches morals and is very weak-minded could have been a factor in the mental illness that plagued many women during her lifetime. In this story she argues against the assumption that there is only one role for women in many different ways.

As you enter into the mind of Gilman through the narrator, which is a mother

supposedly suffering from post-partum depression, you begin to notice how much

influence her husband has over her. The narrator loved writing and would have

probably made a career of it, but her husband, also a doctor, told her that writing was

damaging to the mind and she needed to be more like a woman. Gilman, on the

other hand, believed this to be part of the assumption that women should not think or

put too much stress on their minds which, she most definitely disagreed with. She felt

that reading and writing were essential for women to maintain stable mental health

because it helps the brain exercise and is not left for boredom.

On many other occasions her husband, John, downplays her intelligence and

patronized her thoughts on her own mental, emotional, and physical health. Mentally,

John treats his wife as a parent would a wayward child by comments such as, What is

it little girl? Then he chastises her for walking around the nursery at night. In

another instance, the narrator says, John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that

in marriage. Gilman is showing again that women were seen almost as children or

less intelligent beings. Emotionally, he burdens her mind by keeping her isolated for

long periods of time from family and friends for whom she longs. She speaks often of

visiting with Henry and Julia, but is not permitted to do so. She speaks of crying for no

reason, and crying most of the time, usually when she is alone. She cries alone because

women were expected to maintain proper composure at all times. As for her physical

health, John does not listen to what she has to say. You see he does not believe I am

sick! says the narrator. Gilman is showing that women are not taken seriously even

when it concerns the condition of their own bodies and health.

Gilman, unlike Roosevelt, felt that women should try to pursue careers outside

of motherhood. As in The Yellow Wallpaper, after the birth of her child, the

storyteller was forbidden to work. She disagrees and insists, that congenial work

with excitement and change would do me good. This strongly opposes Roosevelt s

and society s thoughts that work outside of being a wife and mother was unreasonable.

From Gilman s point of view, motherhood was a cage or prison for women.

She compared motherhood to the room with the yellow wallpaper, in my opinion. In

the moonlight, the narrator sees bars in the pattern of the wallpaper and a figure of a

woman behind those bars insisting from Gilman s point of view that mothers may feel

trapped. In another instance, from the room she could view the world and all its

happenings through the windows, but she could never step outside that room and be a

part of the world, just as an early twentieth century mother would have been isolated

from the world.

Gilman opposes the assumption that women are to only be mothers and that

men are superior. Women have lots of strong points that have been discovered and

voiced over the past century. They have grown to hold careers of their own outside of

and including motherhood and expanding their minds through higher degrees of

education. These facts and others prove Gilman s thoughts to be correct, and that all

assumptions cannot be believed.

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