Lady of Shallot
The early 1900's was a time when women were considered to be silent figures and feminist ideas were in full swing. One might say that women were thought only to be good for reproducing heirs to family wealth, thus leaving some women with a train of thought to do just that, and allow themselves be bound by the chains of society. "So long as their universal business is private housework they remain, industrially, at the level of private domestic hand labor, ... servants of the other sex." (Gilman, 1916). The Narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the epitome of a woman who has a child, and is bound by her husband to a house that used to be an asana asylum, causing her to eventually become insane. Insanity was not alien to the people of the early to mid 1900's along with religious piety causing for further suppression of the female sex. However, not everyone was doomed to wind up in the same situation, for some women were strong enough to escape the claws of both the iron fisted men and the society in which they took part in everyday and unearth happiness. Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre and the Alice from Canterbury Tales: Wife of Baths are two women who followed separate paths, both full of rebellion against common belief, to ultimate
Today, women continue to grow and flourish and they are considered equal to men in more countries than ever before. In addition, Alice unlike both Jane and the Narrator had five husbands. Therefore the Narrator is trapped and engulfed in religious piety by her husband's doings. She also attacks the church's view on virginity, saying that even if virginity is important, someone must be doing something to make more virgins. Jane, unlike the others, must learn not to be overcome by her fear. Jane, Alice and the Narrator all relate in having to face the oppressive patriarchal values that dictated their society, however the different ways in which they each handled the situation in the end determined how they came out of it. ] yet each of them, we know, had several brides. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" (Gilman, pg. In the end, just as Jane Eyre was able to find happiness, so was Alice. #8) Yet, she ultimately causes for her own insanity by not persuading her husband to move out and wallows in self pity. Alice in contrast does not cause herself to go insane in any manor; instead she causes for her husband to go slightly to her husbands. Likewise, Alice's ultimate goal is to have a pleasurable life. Religion would pacify any desires that could cause a deviation from these set standards, while submission implied a vulnerability and dependence on the patriarchal head" (Welter 373-377).
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