Gilman and Henrik Ibsen Women

Gilman and Henrik Ibsen

Women empowerment through psychological and metaphorical dissociation from the self: literary analysis of "Yellow Wallpaper" by C.P. Gilman and "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen

The history of women's literature reflects the increasing number of literary works that depict the social oppression and submissiveness of women in the society. Through different portrayals of women, literary works succeeded in illustrating the oppression, discrimination, and submissiveness of women in the society. While some works merely centered on the social problem of women oppression, others attempted to provide a resolution wherein the problem was resolved by the author through the female character or protagonist. More often, literature resolved women oppression through a congenial manner, wherein males learn to acknowledge the rights and privileges of women. However, there were also radical resolutions proposed by authors through their literary pieces. In these radical resolutions, women characters often resolved their dilemma by assuming a strong stand against male dominance and patriarchal society, and in the process, alienating herself from the society.

In this paper, the process of alienation from the society and sometimes, the self, is evident in the works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henrik Ibsen, 19th century writers who wrote the "Yellow Paper" and "A Doll's House," respectively. In these works, female protagonists were shown to experience alienation, though not from the society; instead they sought alienation from their selves in order to emancipate themselves from the oppression and discrimination that they felt in the society they lived in and marriage they were engaged with. This paper posits that Gilman and Ibsen's works reflected the theme of dissocation of the self of each author's female protagonist: while Gilman's female Narrator subsisted to insanity (psychological dissociation) in order to escape the prison-like conditions of her marriage with John, Ibsen's Nora resorted to separating herself from her husband (metaphorical dissociation) Torvald in order to gain her freedom as a woman, not as a wife, once again.

In "Yellow Wallpaper," the woman Narrator was portrayed by Gilman as an individual whose illness -- temporary nervous depression -- had been triggered because of the feeling of 'pressure' that she had to live up, being a wife to her husband John. The process of psychological dissociation was explicated in the story when she began experiencing a feeling of being "imprisoned," having been restricted by her husband to remain in her room to "take a rest," to alleviate her nervous depression. The unnamed female protagonist, who is also the Narrator of the story, desired to gain freedom not only from the confines of her room, but also out of the unfulfilling marriage she was in.

Finding no recourse or way to express her true feelings and thoughts, the Narrator began reflecting on her oppression through the yellow wallpaper patterns on the walls of her room: "The front pattern does move -- and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast...and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard" (Roberts and Jacobs, 1998:550). This passage can be interpreted in two ways: seeing the woman within the wallpaper patterns may signify her dissociation from herself psychologically by succumbing to insanity. However, this process may also be construed as her way of breaking out of the prison that is her marriage, the oppression she felt being dominated by John and the limits that marriage had put on her as a woman. Though the Narrator ended up insane, she succeeded in overcoming her oppression; in fact, she gained the power to overcome her husband's control through insanity. Dissociating the married woman and wife that is the Narrator to become the insane individual she has become in "Yellow Wallpaper" was Gilman's radical resolution against male dominance and patriarchy.

Ibsen's play "A Doll's House" offered a similar portrayal of the female protagonist, Nora, with that of Gilman's female Narrator. However, Nora's interaction with her husband and society in general had been more explicit, illustrating how this oppression against her turned Nora into an individual who seemed to have no choice in life and completely dependent on her husband and other people. After years of being financially dependent and subservient to Torvald's demands and needs, Nora finally chose to empower herself through metaphorical dissociation -- that is, detaching her married self from the woman in her and overcoming her oppression by separating from her husband.