‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte P. Gilman and ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ by Jean Rhys are examples of Eighteenth-century novels that explore the way women were entrapped by the male-dominated society go their time. It is through both novels’ female protagonists that the authors show how women were expected to conform to gender stereotypes.
‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ follows a nameless woman who is suspected of going mad by her husband since giving birth to her child. It is a constant battle for her as she is forced to believe she is going crazy due to post partum depression by her husband when it is in fact her imprisonment that causes her to begin loosing her sanity, “John is away all day and even some nights when his cases are serious”, the narrator must remain at home, confined to her bedroom while her husband is a free man, able to do what he pleases. Due to the narrators gender she is immediately subject to John, who is male, as women were seen to be dutiful wives and mothers but with no freedom of their own, “he said that after the wall-paper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead”. the narrator has no authority of her own, needing her husbands permission to change the ‘smouldering unclean yellow’ wallpaper. By denying her this simple request, explaining that if he changes one thing it will just lead onto other things, “then the barred windows and then that gate” he is providing physical confinement that mirrors the confinement by society that the narrator is going through. Her husband is following societies stereotypes of how women and men were expected to treat each other and by insisting that she is to remained trapped, he is enforcing the rules of society on to her. In the 1800s, if a women gave any sign of madness, whether it be depression from childbirth or problems with mental health, they would be isolated until they showed signs of improvement. In ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, however, it is the narrators surroundings in her confinement that cause her to become madder and madder, “there is something else about that paper – the smell!”, as time passes and she is neglected more and more by her husband, the narrator becomes infatuated with the wallpaper, its’ smell and the pattern. Becoming further obsessed with the wallpaper, the narrator becomes convinced that there is another woman behind the paper trying to escape, “the woman behind it shakes it”, it is her attempts and failures of releasing the woman from being the wallpaper that represent her own enforced confinement by a male patriarchal dominated society. By leaving the narrator nameless, Gilman is allowing the character to represent any woman who has gone through a similar situation and be able to relate to them, “I think there are a great many women behind”, the narrator also claims to see other women behind the wallpaper too, this implies that there are many mothers like her who are being trapped and again, identifies to a female reader who has experienced relatable circumstances in a time where mental health was shunned by society and labelled women as ‘mad’ rather than helping them overcome their problems. Keeping her nameless could also be translated as Gilman’s way of representing the difference in gender roles; the narrators husband is named in the opening sentence, “mere ordinary people like John and me” and along with her brother has a prestigious job, “a physician, and also of high standing”, the male characters dictate the way which she lives, ’absolutely forbidden’, and by never using her name they fail to recognise her as a real person like themselves, but rather view her as a minority. It is the unequal relationship between John and the narrator that the wallpaper brings to light. John is able to see the “outer pattern” but he is unable to see the trapped woman inside behind the wallpaper, therefore unable to help his own wife who is the real prisoner.
Like Gilman in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, Jean Rhys uses ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ to explore the oppressive male-dominated society of the 1800s, emphasising the influence it had on female characters and their alleged madness. Annette, Antionette’s mother, exposes the way Victorian and modern periods viewed the issue of madness. After the death of her mentally ill son, Annette’s depression is worsened and it is not much longer until she is taken over by ‘madness’. Annette and Antionette are both in constant fear of their surroundings; the white and the black people both hate them and their family due to their treatment of slaves and because of their Creole background, “go away white cockroach, go away”, they are outcasts and made to question their identity, “she is not beke… but she is beke, and not like us either”. When Rochester receives a letter from Daniel Cosway, Antoinette’s stepbrother, with claims that madness runs in their family, he immediately rejects her with no real interest about her feelings, “I felt no surprise”, Rochester has not created a strong relationship with Antoinette and when he reads the letter he does not need to confront her, instead he had expected what he was to read, this could be taken to represent the way gender stereotypes were viewed but it is crucial to keep in mind his flashback, “I remembered picking some for her one day”. While he pretends to follow societies rules that women are no more than wives and mothers, it is clear here that there is some feeling from Rochester, “Now i stopped, broke spray off and trampled it into the mud. This brought me to my senses”, he has been brought up in an environment where a husband had complete power and to show any feeling would be viewed as a weakness. In ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, the narrator and her husband are again stereotypically gendered, with Antionette being emotional and irrational while Rochester is dominant and rational. At the time of the novel, women were completely reliant on men for both financial and domestic safety, Rochester owns Antionette’s dowry and estate and therefore he owns her as well. Unlike ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, in this novel we see a female character who seems to challenge the gender roles, Christophine, Antoinette’s nurse, “worse black dress… and yellow handkerchief… No other negro woman wore black, or tied her handkerchief”. Christophine is not solely oppressed by male dominance, ”I don’t give it to no worthless man”, she stands up to men and does not have “no husband”, however by the end of the novel even she realises that there are limits to her freedom and she must conform to Rochester and his rules.
Both novels follow the themes of gender and madness with the male voices of John and Rochester forcing control over and suppressing the females identities. Oppression has trapped the females existences when any dare to defy. Rhys and Gilman remind readers that in the nineteenth century if a woman was to challenge her husband’s power it would not only jeopardise their social security but also their financial. While Gilman focuses more on a woman physically trapped “in marriage” and Rhys’ is set in the Caribbean with a slavery theme, both novels have women protagonists who are still relying on their husbands voices to speak for them.