Symbols of Entrapment

Talents and dreams, hopes and desires, shunned by the husbands and times of the women in ìThe Crysanthemumsî and ìThe Yellow Wallpaper.î The wife, Elisa, in ìThe Crysanthemumsî, reflects an internal struggle with herself to find her place in a world of definite gender roles. ìThe Yellow Wallpaperî traces the treatment of a woman who descends from depression to madness in the male-imposed psychiatric confinement of her room. The mirror-like situations that hinder the protagonists in both stories call the women to conduct themselves in demeanors drastically different from one another. Elisa Allen of ìThe Crysanthemumsî and the narrator of ìThe Yellow Wallpaperî both have husbands who fancy the idea of knowing what their wives want and need. On the way to dinner, Elisa asks her husband about the fights and his immediate reply is, ìWe can go if you want, but I dont think you would like them much.î He cannot fathom the idea that she may actually enjoy this non-feminie event. The narrators husband also assumes that he knows what is best for his wife. He thinks isolation and confinement will cu

The narrator wants out, she will stand for nothing less. Outside the windows, through the bars, the narrator finds a path, a channel of hope that she knows is her alliance with the world. The woman in The Crysanthemumsi and AThe Yellow Wallpaperi both show ambition and the drive to become more. She views the woman as trapped, and, in order to free herself from this non-fulfilling life, she must free the woman. Their husbands, the fence, and the wallpaper, are all constraints that must be depleted. Their strive for happiness and zest for a life far more exciting than the present is what gives the narrator and Ellisa Allen an AWAKENING to which they must react. This Awomani becomes a deadly combination: best friend and worst enemy. These women must elect whether they will linger on in misery or opt for the chance at bliss. By ripping down the wallpaper and abolishing the bars that once surrounded her, she feels autonomous. i Nevertheless, this Acurei makes her weak; it transforms her into a woman gone mad. By sharing her love with others, she is actually leaving, going somewhere, helping someone, on the other side of the fence. Vivid pictures and visions of a life with no barriers, boundaries, or limitations, run free in the minds of both Elisa Allen and the narrator in AThe Yellow Wallpaper. She gives into the figments of her imagination and begins to metamorphose this Athingi she imagines behind the wallpaper as a hallucinogenic image of herself.