ipl-logo

The Cult Of True Womanhood Analysis

2199 Words9 Pages

The Cult of True Womanhood in “The Yellow Wallpaper” In her essay “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860”, Barbara Welter discusses the expected roles and characteristics that women were supposed to exhibit in accordance with the extreme patriarchy of the nineteenth-century America. The unnamed narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is seen to conform and ultimately suffer from this patriarchal construct that Welter labels the Cult of True Womanhood. The narrator falls victim to this life of captivity by exhibiting several of the fundamental characteristics that Welter claims define what a woman was told she ought to be. She has been brainwashed by the patriarchal society of her time to worship the man, her husband, and perform her duties and daily rituals as a means to please him. Welter outlines several characteristics that constitute the perfect or true woman; however, the most crucial and detrimental so-called “virtues” exhibited by Gilman`s the narrator are her submissiveness and domesticity. Although the artistic narrator clearly has her own desires to be free and write as she pleases, her desire to satisfy the patriarchal construct of the household by attending …show more content…

Welter states, “The best refuge for such a delicate creature was the warmth and safety of her home. The true woman’s place was unquestionably her own fireside—as daughter, sister, but most of all as wife and mother, Therefore domesticity was among the virtues most prized by women’s magazines” (Welter 5). Since the woman was confined to the house, without any other options for work or hobbies, the home was more of a prison than a place of comfort. Welter states that the “woman, in the cult of True Womanhood…was the hostage in the home” (Welter 1). The narrator in the short story is seen to suffer from this sort of

Show More
Related

  • Hyperbole By Betty Friedan Rhetorical Devices

    296 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this chapter, Betty Friedan urges a reversal of the notion that femininity must be protected at all costs, and advocates for turning away from the immaturity of femininity in order to become fully human. To depict this notion, Friedan makes use of several rhetorical devices such as parallelism, when she talks about how she got ‘Married, had children, lived according to the feminine mystique as a suburban housewife,’一yet, she could find no purpose in her life, and the idea of salvation, that she thought of achieving through maternity and domestic life further imprisoned her. Moreover, she makes use of hyperbole when she talks about how the love of her life decided to end things between them just because she had ‘won a fellowship’ as to him,

    Read More

  • Who Is Lizzie Borden A Victim

    1364 Words  | 6 Pages

    Based off of evidence that Andrew Borden restricted his daughters from frivolous activities and kept them confined to the home, historians assumed he conformed to Victorian American gender roles and ideologies. The image of an ideal female that circulated through 19th century American culture, specifically the middle and upper classes, can be summed up by the Cult of True Womanhood, outlined by Barbra Welters. The Cult of True Womanhood was a term coined in modern times that described the kind of expectations placed on women of Lizzie Borden’s status and stature in

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

    1354 Words  | 6 Pages

    In Barbara Welters essay,”The Cult of True Womanhood”, she explains what a true woman is supposed to be. She speaks of the housewife appearance she must keep, and the duties that come with that. Both reading relate in the views of what

    Read More

  • Examples Of The Second Great Awakening In The United States

    809 Words  | 4 Pages

    Also exclusive was their “sphere,” or domain of influence, which was confined completely to the home. Thus the Cult of Domesticity “privatized” women’s options for work, for education, for voicing opinions, or for supporting reform. The true woman would take on the obligations of housekeeping, raising good children, and making her family’s home a haven of health, happiness, and virtue. All society would benefit from her performance of these sacred domestic

    Read More

  • Isolation In The Yellow Wallpaper

    570 Words  | 3 Pages

    In her society, it is the woman that is left to be alone in her own thoughts, shown through her husband’s freedom to leave the house and not come back until he wants to versus her confinement to the house. This is reflected through the various “hedges and walls and gates that lock”, making her stay isolated in the house. Ultimately, the character is overtaken by the imagination and through the

    Read More

  • Feminism In Suttree

    1637 Words  | 7 Pages

    Some women were rebelling and fighting for more independence. However, the predominant message women received from society were still the ideas of subservience and housewifery. Even if women felt as if their purpose extended outside of the home, they were taught to repress that feeling and stick to what society wanted for them. Many women of the time appeared to be brainwashed, in a sense--void of any desires or wants for themselves, all energy and time focused on the home and family. A Harpers Weekly advertisement from 1953 details the monotonous tasks and chores delegated to a housewife, showing a day governed entirely by the husband’s “commuting schedule,” full of general housekeeping, shopping, and doing whatever it takes to satisfy the children and impress the husband.

    Read More

  • Women's Rights In The Yellow Wallpaper

    1295 Words  | 6 Pages

    Women in the 1800’ and early 1900’s were treated the same as slaves, second class citizens who had no voice or decision over their lives. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892 with a late American 19th century setting. The main character, a nameless woman, fights depression and anxiety along with being oppressed by her husband John and wanting to rise against the norms of

    Read More

  • Comparing Susan Glaspell's Trifles And The Yellow Wallpaper

    1166 Words  | 5 Pages

    “Trifles” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” are early 20th century short stories that depict women’s suppressive role in society and the belief that women should be treated as subservient and substandard to men. Authors Susan Glaspell (“Trifles”) and Charlotte Anna Gilman (“The Yellow Wallpaper”) are both known for advocating feminism in their works of literature. “Trifles” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” exploit patriarchal dominance and its effect on suppressing women’s intellectual and societal equality. In each short story, the woman protagonist is depicted as trapped in her marriage.

    Read More

  • Comparing Women In The Yellow Wallpaper And The Birthmark

    801 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the nineteenth century, woman had no power over men in society. They were limited in their freedom, as their lives were controlled by their husbands. Some women did not mind this lifestyle, and remained obedient, while some rebelled and demanded their rights. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, are short stories that exposes the lifestyle women lived in the nineteenth century. The protagonists from both stories, Jane and Georgiana, similarly lived a male dominated lifestyle.

    Read More

  • Susan S. Lanser's The Yellow Wallpaper

    464 Words  | 2 Pages

    Susan S. Lanser’s “Feminist Criticism, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ and the politics of color in America” examines the impacts “The Yellow Wallpaper” had on feminist writing styles and critiques. Lanser writes that the story helps to analyze the reading trough “the lens of a female consciousness” and apply the knowledge gained from a female perspective onto other literature (418). The transition that the narrator displays from being dependent on John to becoming independent reflects the feminist movement and challenges the “male dominance” that currently takes precedence in society (418). The “patriarchal prisonhouse” that is society controls the narrator and oppresses women not only in “The Yellow Wallpaper” but in real life as well (419). The

    Read More

  • Universal Truth In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

    650 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gilman incorporates the literary techniques of tone and diction to provide the reader with a clear understanding of how the narrator falls into the beliefs of society, while she is confined and oppressed by her husband’s diagnosis of her being “Nervously Depressed”. Gilman’s use of both techniques allows the work to come together as a whole, and demonstrates the idea that women are content with living in a world were men is seen as more intelligent, able-minded and higher in standard than woman,

    Read More

  • A Raisin In The Sun Feminist Analysis

    1499 Words  | 6 Pages

    Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun presents the rise of feminism in America in the 1960s. Beneatha Younger, Lena Younger (Mama) and Ruth Younger are the three primary characters displaying evidences of feminism in the play. Moreover, Hansberry creates male characters who demonstrate oppressive attitudes towards women yet enhance the feministic ideology in the play. A Raisin in the Sun is feminist because, with the feminist notions displayed in the play, women can fulfil their individual dreams that are not in sync with traditional conventions of that time.

    Read More

  • Mary Shelly's Frankenstein: Towards A Feminist Figure Of Humanity?

    1075 Words  | 5 Pages

    It may skew her thinking and at times be subjective. The intended audience is someone who is studying literature and interested in how women are portrayed in novels in the 19th century. The organization of the article allows anyone to be capable of reading it.

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wallpaper Gender Inequality Analysis

    1091 Words  | 5 Pages

    Gender Inequality: A Woman’s Struggle in “The Yellow Wallpaper” In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman captures the lives of women in a society based on societal expectations during the late nineteenth century. She focuses on the issue of gender inequality where women were often discriminated against and expected to fulfill the role of a perfect wife and mother. The narrator is based on on Gilman’s personal experience of suffering from her treatment for postpartum depression due to the social restrictions on women which represents a reflection on women's social status in society. The narrator, who remains anonymous, is depicted as a depressed and isolated prisoner who is oppressed under her husband’s control and struggles to break free.

    Read More

  • Social Issues In Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse

    826 Words  | 4 Pages

    This novel is also autobiographical. Throughout history, women have been locked in a struggle to free themselves from the borderline that separates and differentiate themselves from men. In many circles, it is agreed that the battleground for this struggle and fight exists in literature. In a

    Read More

More about The Cult Of True Womanhood Analysis

Open Document