Mahmut
Deniz
21
June 2013
The
Out-cry of Women in The Yellow Wallpaper
and Rip Van Winkle
In the stories, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving, the
women inferiority is given as inner psychological problem in The Yellow Wallpaper and in Rip Van
Winkle by ignoring to focus on woman character, the actual oppressed and
victimized character was left background. So, on one hand, the stories show the
reader, Rip's notorious wife and on the other hand insane wife of a husband. The
sign of oppression by the men in The
Yellow Wallpaper is clear but the facts are hidden in the story Rip Van Winkle as the story is focused
on the man and does not show the female issues in detail, thus she is left in
the background. I will try to explain the victimization and oppression that
women character face in these two stories by giving examples from the stories
themselves and other outer sources.
At
the beginning of the story, one could easily understand that in Rip Van Winkle, Rip is a "simple
good natured fellow"(Irving 3) who is constantly being mistreated by his
"witch" wife who thinks he is useless and idle. However, the focus is
never on wife's herself, because of Rip's good nature. The story is focused on
Rip and we only know by narrator that his wife is a devil-incarnate who drives
her poor husband mad and she is all responsible for her husband's escape and grief.
But what is a husband without his paternity duties? Rip is the man who is
actually responsible for the couple's poor marriage because of his own mistakes
and behaviors. In truth, Rip's domestic situation is "configured in terms
of simple stereotypes"(Smith and Sage 92) which is to say, Dame Van Winkle
is victimized by stereotypes as the story was written from a traditional point
of view, actually it is Rip himself that is responsible for his wife's
troubles, because, throughout the story, we know Rip the way we are supposed to
by the author.
Throughout
the story, the wife might be "nagging" too much but not without
reason as Irving himself claims in the story that "his patrimonial estate
had dwindled away under his management"(Irving 5) and "his children
too, were as ragged..."(Irving 5). As for Dame Van Winkle, it seems that
she "has kept her part of the matrimonial bargain, for she has born Rip
children and has, by his own admission, 'always kept the house in neat order'
"(Smith and Sage 92). After all, the wife is generally on the right path
throughout the story however, it is Rip who could not maintain stability in his
family. Besides, Irving " could easily have inserted a sentence to
establish that even when the marriage was new and the economic decline was
slight, she had demanded what Rip could not provide"(Smith and Sage 92).
In
The Yellow Wallpaper the out-cry of
woman is out-loud throughout the story, and this time it is actually maddening.
It is woman's freedom that is being restricted by her lovely husband who thinks
what he is doing is the best for his wife and of course expects no explanation
for this from somebody else. Everything happens gradually in the story and the narrator
(woman) confronts the oppression by her husband which makes her feel as a
prisoner in her house by her husband. She is unable to speak out and express
her own ideas thus the more she gets mad the braver she gets because she is
losing her obedient and traditional-self. So, it is clearly expressed that the
story is about "woman's loss of freedom and humanity within the
institution of marriage"(Chi 80).
For
some authors, the situation is interpreted as "the struggle of women
writers to free themselves in the male-dominant literary realm"(Chi 80).
As both her husband and doctor, John always knows what's best for his wife and
makes her do whatever he wants and prohibits things such as, writing and going
out. Although the story does not focus on hatred between husband and wife, it
surely shows the inner conflict of the woman against emotionless husband who
thinks he is always right. The out-cry of the woman here raises from inside
where John is unable to see, because according to him she "looks" happy
because he only knows his wife superficially. The woman oppression is at such a
high level in the story that the narrator could speak only when she totally
loses her mind which makes her actually not herself, so at the end she speaks
what her heart desires but as another person where she asks upon her husband's
collapse : "Now why should that man have fainted?"(Gilman 33).
To
conclude, both stories include the effect of oppression and false victimization
within their meanings but not in a clear way. The details are hidden in the
stories to be discovered, especially in the Rip
Van Winkle where the man looks the oppressed one rather than woman. The
male character John in The Yellow
Wallpaper as well looks innocent to many readers due to his love for his
wife, but in a conventional way, which looks right from outside but wrong from
inside. Nevertheless, the situation could easily be understood other way around
as we know that the women oppression in nineteenth century was also very common
as "Female oppression was determined by birth, 'like the skin of black'.
The unequal social relationship between men and women meant that man could
'brand' women with 'mental incapacity' and call it 'nature' "(Rowbotham
41).
Works Cited
Chi,
Hsin Ying. Artist and Attic: A Study of Poetic Space in Nineteenth-century
Women's Writing. Lanham, MD: University of America, 1999. Print.
Cole,
Alan R. Mothers and Sons in Chinese Budhism. California: Stanford UP,
1998. Print.
Gilman,
Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories. [Minneapolis,
Minn.]: Filiquarian Pub., LLC, 2007. Print.
Irving,
Washington. "Rip Van Winkle." Rip Van Winkle and Other Selected
Stories. New York: TOR, 1993. 1-21. Print.
Rowbotham,
Sheila. Hidden From History: 300 Years of Women's Oppression and the Fight
Agai. 3rd ed. N.p.: Pluto, 1977. Print.
Smith,
Allan Lloyd., and Victor Sage. Gothick Origins and Innovations.
Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994. Print.
