American Literature

Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper and Susan Glaspells Trifles both reflect the sufferings of women in a strongly patriarchal late 19th century and the early 20th century America. The two works also present strong feminist statements about equality as well as demonstrate Freudian psychoanalysis on the subject of repression. The first is a story of a woman who is locked up in a room to recover from a sort of a mental illness, while the second story is about a woman who is accused of the murder of her husband. Both Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper and Glaspells Trifles portray how the suffering of two women finally crushed their very selves yet made them find their own voices and eventually brought them freedom.

SUFFERING AND HELPLESSNESS
Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper and Glaspells Trifles are both grounded on the theme of human suffering, particularly the suffering and helplessness of women during the early 20th century in America. The female narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper suffers the pain of being isolated in a haunted house (Gilman 1) and forbidden to work until she is well again (Gilman 1). Her sufferings are mostly mental, and outwardly projected upon the most prominent yet horrid (Gilman 2) and unclean (Gilman 1) yellow wallpaper draped all over the wall in her room and behind which she is quite sure that there is a figure of a woman (Gilman 8). This woman seems to be stooping and creeping (Gilman 3), which are both symbolic of her suffering. It is this woman that the narrator somehow unconsciously identifies herself for at nightthe yellow wallpaper becomes bars (Gilman 4). However, it must be clearly noted that the narrators suffering in Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper seems to have been so repressed that she does not recognize it in herself and outwardly projects it in horrifying hallucinations of the yellow wallpaper. This is slightly different from the women in Glaspells Trifles who believe farmers wives have their hands full (Glaspell, Mrs. Hale), which means that they seem to be destined to suffer. Mrs. Hale also describes Minnie Foster before her marriage as someone who used to wear pretty clothes and be lively (Glaspell, Mrs. Hale), implying that women usually strip themselves of everything fun and happy upon marriage and this is likely caused by their husbands. In fact, John, the husband of Minnie Wright is described as a hard man (Glaspell, Mrs. Hale) while Minnie herself was like a bird herself (Glaspell, Mrs. Hale), a reference to the bird whose neck was broken when the women found it.

DISCRIMINATION AND MANIPULATION
The women in both stories have also been explicitly and implicitly discriminated against and manipulated by the men. In The Yellow Wallpaper, discrimination against women is expressed when the narrator mentions that John laughs at herbut one expects that in marriage (Gilman 1), implying that women are destined to be the object of mens ridicule even in the sanctity of marriage, or perhaps because of it. Moreover, the constant nagging of John in Section Three to make the narrator stop thinking about leaving the house and about her own brewing insanity also demonstrates the fact that she is being manipulated. In Glaspells Trifles, the discrimination is more explicit as Minnie Wright in particular and women in general are sarcastically labeled by the Sheriff as held for murder yet worryin about her preserves (Glaspell, Sheriff) and that they just wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it (Glaspell, Sheriff) followed by bursts of laughter from the men. The women in the story, including the accused Minnie Wright and the two other female characters, are all discriminated despite the fact that two of the men are their own husbands. The aforementioned quotes in this section are strong feminist statements of equality. If these had been inculcated in the minds of the women of Gilmans and Glaspells time, they, just like Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, would have accepted these as abashing yet normal. However, in the present times, the modern, high-spirited, confident woman would most likely challenge such statements of discrimination in the name of womens rights.

INDIFFERENCE
The indifference of society, as shown in both works, is one factor that somehow partly or completely allows the suffering of women and even acts as its catalyst. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator mentions that nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little she is able which is to dress and entertain, and order things (Gilman 2) and that it does not do to trust people too much (Gilman 9). These so-called people somehow represent a cold and indifferent society of the late 19th century America. This indifference also shows itself in Glaspells Trifles when Mrs. Hale describes the Wrights house as a lonesome place which is down in a hollow, and one doesnt see the road (Glaspell, Mrs. Hale). Such a description implies that nobody seems to care about Minnie Wright who is always left alone in the house. Even her friends, like Mrs. Hale, dont seem to bother to visit her.

A DIFFERENT FREEDOM
According to the Psychoanalytic Theory of Freud, which was at its early stages of development in the early 20th century, repressed emotions will always want to find their way out and will always want to break free of the individuals subconscious either through projection, identification and insanity (Abrahamsen) as in the case of the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper, or through aggression (Smith) as in the case of Minnie Wright in Trifles.

Based on the aforementioned theories, the repressed need for freedom and the constant mental suffering caused the narrator in Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper  to eventually turn insane, start to creep smoothly on the floor and creep over her husbands unconscious body every time (Gilman 10). Yet, terrible as it may seem, the insanity is regarded by the narrator as her ultimate escape and passport to freedom in an otherwise happy world where all the once repressed thoughts and wishes are given expression. The same is true with Minnie Wright in Glaspells Trifles who gained a different kind freedom by hanging her husband with a rope, which demonstrates the idea that the rope that she herself was once bound with like a victim is now used against the perpetrator himself.

CONCLUSION
Both the narrator in Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper and Minnie Wright in Glaspells Trifles are oppressed, discriminated, manipulated and most of all, unloved. Their lives have been filled with mental suffering and peppered with moments of psychological disturbances. They both have the repressed need for love and affection  the silent screaming voice from within them  which, after being listened to for a long time, eventually exploded into a violent climax for both characters. Nevertheless, such twin events symbolize nothing but their freedom not exactly from the physical bondage but more importantly from the mental and spiritual bondage caused by repressed emotions. Both Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper and Glaspells Trifles, both of whose titles the main characters have identified themselves with, reveal not only the suffering and discrimination of women in patriarchal America and the indifference of society towards it but also and most importantly, the different and rather pathetic kind of freedom that most of these women would usually resort to.