Women Run the World

The gender role in society are changing compared to how they were in history. There's always been a gap between women and men because women are supposed to be submissive to men, giving men all this power over woman. However, today many women are developing masculine traits such as working and fulfilling their career goals. Many women are leading large companies and owning their own businesses. Women and men are not equal due to the fact that there are different privileges for both genders. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Henry Isben’s play A Doll’s House, both introduce women who are capable of emasculating men. In “ The Yellow Wallpaper” and A Doll House, both texts explore the themes of gender through power and madness in a female. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is classified as a crazy/mad woman, while the main character in A Doll House, Nora, proves her madness once she is exposed to power. In a marriage, lack of understanding/communicating of a partner can lead to the other partner experiencing madness. In fact, the main character in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a wife of a physician and he tries to controls her. Since the husband is a physician, the protagonist can not argue with him. For instance, Gilman writes, “ But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself…” (page 77). The wife mentions how she takes ‘pains’ to control herself, indicating that she has a condition. In this case, she really does have a condition, she is insane in her head. Since her husband is a physician he does not pay attention to her when she talks about this ‘yellow wallpaper.’ This implies that he does not care, instead he controls her by insisting she takes these ‘pains’. Later on in the short story, the main character finds her insanity as something normal, rather than being worried all the time. She was constantly worried about this ‘yellow wallpaper’. She started to see images in the yellow wallpaper, she even seen a person in it. Turns out the woman is really her and after she figures this out, her insanity takes over and worries her husband. For example, “‘what’s the matter?’ He cried. ‘For God’s sake, what are you doing!’”(page 89). This quote is at the end of the short story, and it paints how the wife is not concerned but yet the husband is now. It is ironic because, now she is looked at as normal while he is looked at as insane. The lack of the husband not caring for her obsession with the yellow wallpaper made his wife find her happy place and start living this insanity. The husband ignoring her made her lock herself in that room to actually discover more about the wallpaper. The sudden possession of money by a woman instead of a man can lead to madness. This is because money is looked upon as a masculine attribute. Nora finds herself infatuated with the possession of money that makes her feel invincible. Her husband, Torvald Helmer, provides her with money because women at that time could not handle money. For example, in the play A Doll House, it states, ”Don’t deny it, my little Nora. Spendthrifts are sweet, but they use up a frightful amount of money. It’s incredible what it costs a man to feed such birds” (page 853). In this stage Nora asks Helmer for some money, but he feels as if she is a spendthrift, always spending his money and not saving it up. Helmer is possessive over Nora, as if she was his own little doll, hence the way he calls her a ‘spendthrift’. Little does he know, Nora plays a character towards him and actually using him for his money to feel powerful. Another example is,“You’re never at loss for scaring up money; but the moment you have it, it runs out through your fingers; you never know what you’ve done with it”(page 853). Nora’s husband Helmer confronts her about her money addiction. Nora begins to experience her own type of madness because money just emphasizes her power. Having money in a woman’s shoes shows her independence and in this stage of life she’s basically emasculating her husband. Women face rules posed by society as to being passive towards men, giving men all this power and authority over them. Whether they are mentally ill or not, men will always cease to take advantage. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the wife of the physician can not help but to listen to all the things he says when it comes to her health, because he is a doctor. Other than that, she is restricted due to the ‘vacation’ he took for her to get well. For example, “He said we came here solely on my account, that I have the perfect rest and all the air I could get” (Page 77). This so called ‘vacation’ is supposed to help her, but her husband takes her to a nice colonial mansion which had many flaws in it. Playing the role of a wife, the author shows the woman being obedient to her husband implying that husbands have most of the control over women. The husband barely cared for her until she locked herself in that room. All this time she was talking about the yellow wallpaper, he brushed off her thoughts. In A Doll House, Nora is submissive to Helmer because he is her husband. In the middle of this play Nora actually goes behind his back and borrows money, but does not want him to find out. Krogstad holds power over Nora for this. For example, “My husband must never know anything of this.” Nora orders Krogstad not to mention anything to her husband because Nora is scared of her husband. Her husband holds more power in her eyes more than the law because he perceives her as, rather than going to jail, since her husband is superior. Women are subjected by men everyday due to society. Women are looked down upon most of the time, because society feels as if they are not capable to do things a man can do. Women can hold a masculine trait like holding money and being independent. Society does not want this, they want them to be passive and cater to men. Both works of literature, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and A Doll House by Henry Ibsen, explore the ideas of how a woman could show their craziness through identity.They also discuss the way women are restricted in a marriage.