Us The Duo is so cute. 

The Pleasure and Pressures of Being a Woman

“It is the fault of fatality!” (569) were the words of Charles Bovary to the lover of his wife, Emma. These words were filled with the sound of defeat when societal ideology triumphantly crushes an individual’s free will. Although through a quick reading, we may see Madame Bovary as just another story about adultery and greed like that of Homer’s tragedies,¹ a careful reading would give us an insight about an era wherein the “self” is battling with the societal pressures of its time. Gustave Flaubert successfully captured the ridiculousness of the pretentious provincial bourgeois² which forced his characters, Charles Bovary to blame fate and which forced Emma Bovary to take her life. Madame Bovary is a strong example of a piece created to expose the problems of the societal ideology of its time. Similar to Madame Bovary, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is also a piece that served as an eye opener about the societal pressures placed upon the different genders of its time. This story tells us about the farcical methods of the resting cure³ that brought a woman to the end of her wits. These two stories tells us about the situation of women victimized by the domestic sphere⁴ by being choked by the societal ideology of their time. The strong theme in these two stories revolves around the battle between fate and free will. The two women in the stories are seen trying to exercise their free will but was eventually defeated by their sealed fate due to the ever powerful societal ideology that governs the lives of every person living during their time until now.

The “societal ideology” is an important phrase to analyze the two stories. It is like a facade that covers the true horrid issues regarding gender and class during their time. The societal ideology that will be discussed in this paper will focus on Emma in the Madame Bovary and the unnamed girl in the Yellow Wallpaper. These two characters are struggling to fit within the norms of their society even though they know within themselves that doing so will hamper their free will as a person. These two characters were crafted carefully by their creators to use them as a tool to primarily capture the theme of free will versus fate through discussing the societal norms of their time when women were still the second sex. During the reign of the French petit bourgeois⁵ or the provincial bourgeois, women were voiceless, weaker, and were treated like ornaments of their husbands or fathers. Flaubert exposed this inequality properly by making Emma voiceless. Unlike other characters, Emma never had a dialogue. Her thoughts were part of the narration wherein our description of her was limited by the author’s power over her. It is totally different when a character has a dialogue wherein the reader can have different interpretations as to how a character could say something. Like Flaubert, Gilman expressed the invisibility of the married woman of the 19th century American society.⁶ During this time, a woman should be passive, obedient, and voiceless. These stipulations makes a woman invisible or unknown; thus, creating the unnamed woman of The Yellow Wallpaper. Furthermore, both the characters of the two stories are aware of the consequences brought about by their gender. Emma explained this well when she desperately hoped for a son. She explained,

“A man, at least, is free; he can explore all passions and all countries, overcome obstacles, taste of the most distant pleasures. But a woman is always hampered. Being inert as well as pliable, she has against her the weakness of the flesh and the inequity of the law. Like the veil held to her hat by a ribbon, her will flutters in every breeze; she is always drawn by some desire, restrained by some rule of conduct.” (146)

Unfortunately for her, Berthe, a gentle little baby girl came out. She fainted due to her enormous disappointment.

Similarly, the unnamed woman in The Yellow Wallpaper knows the terrible situation of being a woman during her time. Through her tough time battling against insanity, she saw a woman’s head in the yellow wallpaper which helped her unconsciously explain that many women tried to fight against being silenced but were eventually defeated by the societal pressure and rules.

“Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over. […] And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern--it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.” (654)

Therefore, the story of The Yellow Wallpaper and Madame Bovary revolves around the injustices experienced by women during these oppressive eras which eventually snatched them of their freedom and sealed their fate.

The bourgeois ideals⁷ corrupted Emma. All her life she was strictly governed by the pretentious bourgeois that focusses more on outward appearance than the true character of an individual. During this time, a simple deviation could cause your social demise. The bourgeois lives in an illusion of grandiose and riches. Each gender has a role to fulfill. Men should join clubs, should have expertise, should be rich, and should be experts in quixotic romance. Women should be beautiful, should have beautiful homes, should be pale, should be silent in the public sphere, should live in the shadow of their husbands, should change their gowns at least eight times a day, and should be a passive ornament of their husbands.⁸ Emma became obsessed about her outward appearance and the outward appearance of her home. She lived a life of luxury and filled her home with expensive materials. She is always elegantly dressed to impress other people. As time passes, she became disgusted of Charles because he is nothing like a true bourgeois gentleman. He seemed to her as an inadequate, weak and insignificant man and yet she has no choice but to be his wife no matter what happens. Emma knows that she could do better in life and that she could escape her fate. She believes that her fate should be sealed by the dictates of the bourgeois society. “Emma was secretly pleased that she had reached at a first attempt the rare ideal of pale lives, never attained by mediocre hearts.”(64) Until finally, Emma commits adultery. For Emma, seeing other men is a ticket to escape her fate. However, these men only toyed with her emotions. Rodolphe only saw Emma as another mistress and manipulated her because he sees her like “she's gasping for love like a carp on a kitchen table gasping for water” (215). He knows Emma is desperate and then asks himself, how would I get rid of her later?" (215) Leon although has purer intentions for Emma decides to leave her because of her ideals and problems. At the end of the day, Emma prostituted herself and ended up being defeated.

Analyzing Emma’s life will bring us to the conclusion that even though Emma believed that she has control over her life, the dictates of men around her had more control over her. Furthermore, this control was not only exercised by the men who has direct access to her but also by other people who only see her from a certain angle. The priest for example was convinced that a perfumed concoction like the aromatic vinegar that Emma smelled was made “to stupefy the senses and to bring on ecstasies—a thing, moreover, very easy in persons of the weaker sex, who are more delicate than the other.” (340) The priest automatically considered the situation as gender problem and not as a medical problem. During the end of the novel, Emma was defeated and shamed because of her debts and the rejections she had suffered that she decided to kill herself. The situation she went through was not only the cause of her volitions but also by the pressures of her own surroundings. Her ideals focussed on her “if-onlys” like if only, she was richer, if only she had a boy, if only Charles was different etc. Nothing about the materialistic ideals brought about by her bourgeois upbringing could calm her down in order to feel contented. At the end of the day, she was trapped with no one to clearly stand up and serve as her wake-up call. Therefore, being a woman is like a curse for her. She is always hampered by outside stimulus beyond her control. She was always trapped to the social expectations of her as a woman, a mother, and a wife which consumed her sanity and caused her death.

Emma is not the only person trapped within the stipulations of a societal ideology. The unnamed girl in The Yellow Wallpaper is also a victim of a time where women were subjected to ridiculous standards. The unnamed girl was suffering from postpartum sickness⁹ and was required by the men in her life to be isolated. Similar to Emma, her decisions were affected by outside stimulus particularly by the men in her life. Her husband dictates how she lives her life. The resting cure is a common solution applied to her and to many “sick” women during this time. Although the woman felt that she will feel better if she was allowed to go outside, she decided to be contented and kept her thoughts to herself.

“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do? . . .”

“So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again.

Personally, I disagree with their ideas . .” (648)

Although she kept on convincing her husband that it is better for her to talk to other people, her husband kept on refusing to give her this freedom because deviation from the rules would only make her condition worse. She battled against her forced confinement by writing a journal to keep her sanity but the enormous silence and isolation consumed her. The restrictions placed upon her resulted to an enormous mental breakdown.

Literature is an avenue to express the injustices in our society. Flaubert and Gilman captured the injustices against women as they feature the lives of two women who were considered as incapable of deciding their own destiny. Their fate was sealed because of their gender. They were controlled by the men surrounding their life regardless if they were their friends, family, or lovers. However, looking at the power of the texts to express injustices tell us not only about gender inequality but also translates as to how the society tries to manipulate the individuals living inside it. The theme of fate and free will, as Flaubert and Gilman tried to explain it, tackles not only the issue of female freedom but of human freedom. Is it really true that only women, the weaker sex, have sealed fates? Both in the public and private sphere¹⁰ both sexes are destined to assume specific roles that seals the faith of each and every person. Should John of the Yellow Wallpaper or Charles of Madame Bovary conform to the ways that the society dictates regarding the treatment of their selves and their wives? The theme of fate and freewill discusses a bigger issue that affects each individual in the story wherein the societal pressure of a societal ideology hides in the facade of fate.

Furthermore, the societal ideology is only “facade”---a tool to convince people that everything is going properly. It is a tool to force a perspective within societies that injustices never occur. It is a tool to place people strictly in certain positions or roles, thus it is an invisible prison. All the mockery that we throw at people who deviate in our societal norms is only a reflection of our frustration regarding the absurdity of a “freedomless” freedom. Until today, we are forced to believe that we are free to do everything we desire but those who deviate with the societal norms were mocked and ridiculed. We have to ask ourselves, did our society truly change? Does the minority have a better chance on exercising their free will now? Are we really free? The Yellow Wallpaper and Madame Bovary could be an eye opener about the existential dilemma of the battle between fate and freewill not only for a certain gender but for every thinking, living, and feeling human being.

Notes:

1.Homer’s tragedies, see The Iliad and Odyssey by Homer  

2.Provincial bourgeois, see The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France: Gender, Sociability, and Use of Emulation by Carol Harrison.

3.Resting cure, see Rest Cure in Science Museum Brought to Life: Exploring the History of Medicine

4.Domestic sphere, see Separate Spheres: Women's Place and Men's Place in Separate Spheres Ideology

5.Petit bourgeois, see The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France: Gender, Sociability, and Use of Emulation by Carol Harrison.

6.19th century American society, time settings of The Yellow Wallpaper

7.Bourgeois ideals, see The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France: Gender, Sociability, and Use of Emulation by Carol Harrison.

8.Women’s dress standards, see Women’s Dress Standards in the World of the Parisian Bourgeois

9.Postpartum sickness, see Mental Health America, Postpartum Disorders http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/postpartum-disorders

10.Public and private sphere, see Separate Spheres: Women's Place and Men's Place in Separate Spheres Ideology

Bibliography:

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. 1st ed., Planet PDF, 2016, http://www.planetpublish.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Madame_Bovary_NT.pdf.

Harrison, Carol E. The Bourgeois Citizen In Nineteenth-Century France. 1st ed., Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999,. Accessed through Google Books https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=qofPNh-OL4AC&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=provincial+bourgeois&source=bl&ots=LKHDvXsHcF&sig=J7h12CqiUEUhQjNmcE9gBucg1RU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjRho3k0-HQAhWDlJQKHdawBaAQ6AEILjAD#v=onepage&q=provincial%20bourgeois&f=false

Homer,. "The Iliad And Odyssey Of Homer : Homer : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive". Internet Archive, 1791, https://archive.org/details/iliadodysseyofho01home.

Lewis, Jone. "Women's Place, Men's Place: How The Idea Of Separate Spheres Grew". About.Com Education, 2015, http://womenshistory.about.com/od/lives19th/a/Separate-Spheres.htm.

Perkins Gilman, Charlotte. The Yellow Wallpaper. 1st ed., New England Magazine, 1892, https://www.nlm.nih.gov/literatureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf.

"Postpartum Disorders". Mental Health America, http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/postpartum-disorders.

"Rest Cure". Sciencemuseum.Org.Uk, 2016, http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/techniques/restcure.

"Women’s Dress Standards In The World Of The Parisian Bourgeois". France In The Age Of Les Misérables, 2016, https://rmschwartz.wordpress.com/paris/the-life-of-the-parisian-bourgeoisie/shopping-dress-and-consumerism/womens-dress-standards-in-the-world-of-the-parisian-bourgeois/.

Angry ninja pose.  I am having a hard time coping with all the boredom. I might as well make an angry ninja pose. 

Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath

'I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead 

I lift my lids and all is born again 

the stars go waltzing out in blue and red

(I think I made you up inside my head)  

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed 

and sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane 

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead 

(I think I made you up inside my head)  

I fancied you'd return the way you said 

but I grow old and I forget your name 

I should have loved a thunderbird instead 

at least when spring comes they roar back again 

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead 

(I think I made you up inside my head)