Obedience
or Freedom?
Freedom is the state of being free or at liberty
rather than in confinement or under physical restraint. Freedom also means to get rid of the shackles
of the mind. From a long time ago, the
feminist movement has been going on for women’s rights and freedom. Most people think that women should stay at
home to take care of the family rather than go out to work. The husband is the center of the family, so
the wife should obey her husband. This
idea has always limited the freedom of women.
Both Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin were feminists. They wrote a lot of stories about female
inequality and freedom, such as The
Yellow Wallpaper and The Birthmark. However, all these stories showed that wives
were obeying their husbands, though they wanted to get freedom. For women, the obedience to the husband is
the biggest obstacle to getting free.
The characters of The Yellow
Wallpaper, The Birthmark and
Zetian Wu proved this point.
If women want to get real freedom, they should know
how to resist rather than obey. The most
famous character who wanted to get freedom is Perkins Gilman in The Yellow Wallpaper, which she wrote
about herself. Perkins Gilman could not disagree
with her husband for anything, even though it was her own health
condition. “You see he does not believe
I am sick! 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?” (Gilman 316). Gilman suffered from
a severe and continuous melancholia. But
her husband did not trust her, and he just thought that Gilman needed to rest
instead of writing. Therefore, Gilman pretended that she was
getting better. In this way, her husband
could set his heart at rest, and their family would be happy. In addition, Gilman obeyed her husband when
he told her that she could not write anymore, though she did not agree. “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” (Gilman 316). Moreover, her husband gave her a series of
plans, and she could only obey. Her
husband thought that changing to a new house would help her to get better, and
let her live in the attic, though she did not like this house, especially the
attic. She did not like the wallpaper,
which caused her to suffocate with fear.
But her husband thought to overcome the fear was good for her
condition. Gilman did not want to refuse
any requirements from her husband, she thought it was not worthwhile to turn
her hand over for anything, but she was getting dreadfully fretful and
querulous (Gilman 320).
Therefore, Gilman wanted to get freedom. The woman she saw in the wallpaper was her spiritual
world. Gilman secretly began writing and
thinking. “There comes John, and I must
put this away, - he hates to have me write a word” (Gilman 317). Because her husband forbade her to write and
thought writing was bad for her health. Gilman
started to observe the wallpaper every day, and she found there was a woman or
a lot of women in the wallpaper. “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. They
get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside
down, and makes their eyes white” (Gilman 325).
These women in the wallpaper represent the oppressed women in reality,
which also include Gilman, they want to break through the bondage to freedom,
but there is always a wall blocking them.
It represents the obstacles created by society. Finally, the women in wallpaper break the
shackles, and Gilman wrote down the story of The Yellow Wallpaper. In the
end of story, Gilman wrote “now why should that man have fainted? But he did,
and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every
time!” (Gilman 328). This sentence means
that Gilman got the freedom finally with her husband falling. Her husband fell means the obstacle was
cleared, and Gilman had to creep over her husband means that she got the rid of
obstacles from her husband.
However, if women only know to be obedient to their
husbands, death may be waiting for them.
Like Georgiana in The Birthmark
was a housewife and obedient to her husband. Georgiana was a confident woman,
and she was a beauty. “Aylmer has left
his laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from
the furnace-smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a
beautiful woman to become his wife” (Hawthorne 218). Aylmer was a famous scientist, and he put
down his experiment to pursue Georgiana.
It was enough to prove that Georgiana was a beautiful woman. Thus, after Georgiana married Aylmer, when
Aylmer asked, “has it never occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might
be removed” (Hawthorne 219)? Georgiana
said no. “To tell you the truth, it has
been so often called a charm, that I was simple enough to imagine it might be
so” (Hawthorne 219). Georgiana was
confident, though there was a birthmark on her face, she thought it was charming.
But as an idealist, her husband decided to remove the
birthmark from Georgiana’s face. Even
though Georgiana did not want to remove the mark at beginning. However, at last, she chose to obey her
husband, and she accepted to remove the birthmark. “If there be the remotest possibility of it,
let the attempt be made, at whatever risk.
Danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the
object of your horror and disgust – life is a burden which I would fling down
with joy” (Hawthorne 221). Finally, the
birthmark was removed, but meanwhile, she lost her life. Indeed, the birthmark belonged to Georgiana,
and she was free to choose to remove it or not.
If she did not obey her husband to remove the birthmark, she would not be
dead, but she did not. Although her
husband studied the liquid medicine to remove the birthmark, which also took
Georgiana’s life
In ancient China, there was a woman who was the
emperor for a while in Zhou Dynasty, named Zetian Wu. “In September 690 AD, Zetian Wu accepted the
request of people, claiming to be the Shengshen Emperor, and she changed the title
of country reign to Zhou. She became the
only female emperor in history” ("Empress Zetian Wu"
28).
She was the imperial concubine of emperor Taizong at fourteen years
old. Then, Taizong was dead, and she
became the empress by marrying the son of Taizong - Gaozong. The Chinese throne was hereditary system, and
the last concubine could not marry the next emperor. If an emperor was dead, the concubine also
needed to be buried. But Zetian Wu did
not obey her husband, she married two emperors because she thought women can
choose their own marriage and life. In
addition, a Chinese emperor could not be a woman. But Zetian Wu did not obey her husband to
help his son to get the throne when Gaozong died, she became the emperor by
herself. Zetian Wu was a brave
woman. She did not choose to obey her
husband, she got freedom and got what she wanted by her own efforts.
For women, the obedience to the husband is the biggest
obstacle to getting free. If they want
to get real freedom, they should know how to resist rather than obey. However, if women only know to be obedient to
their husbands, death may be waiting for them.
Gilman resisted her husband, and she became a popular novelist. Zetian Wu did not obey her husband, and she
became the only female emperor. However,
like Georgiana, she obeyed her husbands, and she died being obedient. Women should be brave to resist and get the right
of freedom, rather than choose to obey.
`
Work
Cited
Booth, Alison, and Kelly
J. Mays. The Norton Introduction to
Literature. 10th ed. New York:
W.W.
Norton & Co., 2011. Print, pp. 1129-1164,1165-1238.
Chopin, Kate. "The
Story of An Hour." N.p., 1894. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.
"Empress Zetian Wu."
Chinese Lunar Website. N.p., n.d.
Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
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