Oppression and Depression
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In both Margaret Atwood s The Handmaid s Tale and Charlotte Perkins Gilman s Herland society depends on motherhood and the ability to reproduce. The latter is an utopian novella about an all women society that s civilized beyond even our own, while Atwood s dystopian tale describing a paternal theocracy existing after a national disaster that leaves only a small minority of the women fertile. There are prevalent themes between this story and another of Gilman s stories, The Yellow Wallpaper, which describes the descent of a mother into madness because she s oppressed by her husband.
In The Yellow Wallpaper, a nameless narrator describes the nervous and hysterical condition from which she suffers after the birth of a baby boy. Her husband brings her to an old mansion to get well, and while there, she s troubled by the wallpaper in the room where she s recovering. In fact, she doesn't recover at all, but slips from sanity by the end of the story. Aside from being a well-written and haunting tale, The Yellow Wallpaper is also a story of a psychological meltdown resulting from an oppressive patriarchal culture. She and her good natured husband, John, are spending the summer together, she sick and he trying to help cure her,. The narrator is an obedient wife who listens to John s suggestion to spend her time resting. John is a doctor used to identifying illnesses by physical symptoms, and if Gilman s protagonist is to be trusted, doesn't believe his wife is even sick...