Rhetoric Of Gender/The Yellow Wallpaper
...er three months, at which time she was pushed to the edge of mental ruin. Finally she decided to forget what the doctor prescribed for her, and instead did what she felt she needed to. After the doctor read “The Yellow Wallpaper,” he completely changed his approach on treating women with nervous disorders. “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which was originally viewed as a Poe-esque horror story, made a great effort to inform the public about the role men played in American culture. An example of this is the narrator’s husband providing her with inadequate care in spite of being a physician. In fact, she seems to know what would be better for her recuperation than he did, as she thinks she should be working, taking care of her baby, and maintaining social interactions instead of being isolated in a room. Gilman did this to emphasize that medicine, as well as marriage, were male-dominated professions, regardless of whether or not men were capable of the job. She hints at female oppression by making insanity the narrator’s only means of “escaping” her husband’s ignorance. George Orwell, another vehement advocate of social and political reform also hoped to achieve great change with his writing. In “Politics and the English Language,” Orwell expounds on the use of what he calls “ugly” language. He goes into detail on “Dying Metaphors…Pretentious Diction,” etc. Orwell attributes the use of this language to politics. A fervent opponent to totalitarianism, Orwell connects the use of propaganda and other political “literature” (a term used very loosely here) to the degradation of the English language. In Orwell’s mind, the fall in the quality of English combined with the hyperbole of politics led to lazy thinking. In turn, the lack of active thought led to an even greater downfall for English. By allowing their speech to become “stale,” people are permitting others to interfere with how they think and communicate. Orwell’s message is not pretentious; his mission is not to criticize every menial aspect of wr...