Daisy Miller and The Yellow Wallpaper and Women Stereotypes
In the short stories Daisy Miller and the Yellow Wallpaper, there is one distinct and obvious theme; the degradation of the female gender. Society often places specific, stereotypical, and restrictive standards on the female sex. Although modern women have overcome unfair chauvinism and prejudice, late nineteenth and early twentieth-century was much different. Women were forced to deal with a culture in which gender equality was much less understood. Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henry James voiced their opinions concerning gender inequalities themselves through fictional literature. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", the main character is a woman who is mentally ill and basically imprisoned until she regains her normal mental state. As in Henry James's "Daisy Miller", the main character is a young American girl traveling in Europe who denies the classic female standards and simply constructs her own rules. In "the Yellow Wallpaper", the entire story progresses never revealing the main character's name. This in itself possibly alludes to the fact that the women of her era simply lacked their own personal identity. They were known simply as "the wife of Mr. Smith rather than their own separate entity
Great advancements have been made in the liberation of women everywhere. As you can easily identify with, times were not always as liberal as they are today. Charlotte Perkins's character imagined a warped version of her world, and eventually became utterly insane. While most cases were not this extreme, this character was justified in creating a consciousness of such a severe situation. Also, James's character did what most defiant young American women would do in Daisy's situation. Therefore, she broke free from restraining boundaries and lived her life as she saw it fit. A woman of passion, she chose to ignore the oppressive attitudes of her peers. Although women of today are still combating for gender equality, these authors and their characters helped to light the way of a dark path ahead for civilizing gender relationships. While most women of this time were in no way insane as a result of repression, many dealt with the inequality in other ways. One way was to completely deny the standards and simply construct your own rules. In Henry James's short story Daisy Miller, Daisy is an American girl who is spending time overseas in Europe. She was a young and flirtatious girl lost in a world of extremely conservative and narrow-minded individuals. Instead of bowing down to the cultural restrictions, she chose to ignore them and do as she pleased. This eventually, however, led to her untimely demise. For example, early one evening, Daisy announced to Mrs. Walker, that she was leaving alone to meet a romantic interest of hers. When it was discovered that the man
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Approximate Word count = 1072
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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