The Empowerment of Women

Paper Summary:

The writer of this paper examines how through the various portrayals of women, literary works succeeded in depicting the oppression, discrimination and submissiveness of women in society. This paper discusses the manner in which literature has resolved certain issues of oppression in women, while also illustrating the manner in which male characters, in numerous works of writing, have come to accept the rights and privileges of women. The writer explains how the process of alienation from society and the inner self, in women, is evident in both the writings of Gilman and Ibsen. In both works, the female protagonists are shown to experience various forms of alienation. This paper delves into how the women, in both novels, managed to emancipate themselves from the oppression and discrimination that they experienced, in their own surroundings. The writer of this paper contends that both Gilman and Ibsen's writings reflect similar themes of dissociation of one's self. Gilman's female narrator resorted to insanity, a form of psychological dissociation, in order to escape the prison-like conditions of her marriage, while Nora, in Ibsen's novel, separated herself from her husband, a metaphorical dissociation, in order to gain her freedom.

From the Paper:

"Finding no recourse or way to express her true feelings and thoughts, the Narrator began reflecting on her oppression through the yellow wallpaper patterns on the walls of her room: "The front pattern does move-and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast...and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard." This passage can be interpreted in two ways: seeing the woman within the wallpaper patterns may signify her dissociation from herself psychologically by succumbing to insanity. However, this process may also be construed as her way of breaking out of the prison that is her marriage, the oppression she felt being dominated by John and the limits that marriage had put on her as a woman."

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