Marriage Compared: Hills Like White Elephants and the Yellow Wallpaper

In "The Yellow Wallpaper", by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the role of men is cast as a vastly superior role to that of women, and relationships are truly displayed as a contract where the woman brings nothing to the table apart from children. Comparatively, in "Hills Like White Elephants", the relationship is seen more as companionship and the couple discusses whether or not they even want to have a child. The woman is not portrayed as just a vessel of life.

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the husband gaslights his wife by denying there's anything wrong with her, and as a physician, assumes he knows what is best for her. He confines her to a bedroom with bars against her will to the point she loses her identity; in short, it's a very unsupportive marriage.

On the other hand, in "Hills Like White Elephants," we see a supportive marriage where both make their voices heard, but the choice of the baby is left for the woman to decide as it is her body. They are fairly equal in the relationship, on vacation together, and the woman gets to decide her fate.

These two short stories display polar opposite situations where relationships are concerned in that one is an oppressive contract, and the other is equal in companionship. Although the relationship is not perfect between the couple, it's a great deal better than the marriage in "The Yellow Wallpaper."

The wife in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is unnamed. Every other character that appears is given a name; she is oppressed even in the fact that she remains unacknowledged. Her husband, John, calls her "Darling" and "little girl" diminishing her value as a woman to the point she's not even being given her rightful title as "Mrs." and is seen as little more than a child in her own husband's eyes (Gilman, 180).

Not only is she not acknowledged as a woman, she's not allowed to see her own child and is denied the one role she has a right to-- being a mother (174). Someone else is taking care of her baby as she has been so oppressed, she cannot even handle being around her own child. She gave birth to a child, and she is essentially set aside as no longer being useful in any way. She is not allowed to work, write, parent, socialize, or leave the room.

Her husband controls her utterly. He believes in male superiority and uses his status as a physician to control everything about her. He denies her depression and commits her to house arrest for the summer out of shame of others finding out about her. He does not allow any outside contact beyond the family to keep her illness hushed up, less her "condition" ruin his reputation. He refuses to take any of her requests into consideration, and any time she bring up an issue or problem, he belittles her. She is left, cooped up, in a room with bars and yellow wallpaper that she starts seeing herself in.

She is brought to the edge of insanity and starts to personify the wallpaper out of boredom and loneliness, and all the while, John still denies there's anything wrong with her to her face. Her sister-in-law becomes her jailer who reports to John whenever she is "disobedient". She completely loses herself in the wallpaper, and she tears down the wallpaper in the end because it's the final thing she has control over.

"By daylight, she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by the hour." (181)

The woman starts personifying the wallpaper, looking for images and trying to understand the pattern of the yellow lines. She starts to see herself, and she doesn't realize that what she is describing is her own reflection in a non-reflective surface. The wallpaper becomes a mirror, and not only does she see herself, she believes there is a woman genuinely trapped in the wallpaper, a woman that moves and shakes the paper, crawling on her hands and knees, going around in circles. She does not identify the fact that she, herself, is on her own hands and knees, aimlessly going in circles around the room. It could be argued, that she is not wrong. She is trapped in the wallpaper, but she imagines someone else is literally in the paper, not herself figuratively. The damage her husband does is unspeakable.

She, in every sense, has an identity crisis and can no longer differentiate herself from inanimate objects. She is essentially brainwashed and can no longer think for herself.

"I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes." (173)

She believes her husband is in the right, and she discards her own anger despite the fact that her anger is one hundred percent justified. Although, by the end, there is a sense that she has either become so unhinged she no longer sees her husband as her husband, disassociating completely, or that she wakes up from his control in a sense. Both are plausible. She rips the wallpaper off to free the woman and to spite her husband. She frees herself from him in a way, as she is consumed by madness and steps over his fainted body when he sees, and truly understands, how depressed and unwell she is.

The husband and wife on vacation in Spain are painted very differently in "Hills Like White Elephants". They are presented fairly equally, as neither are explicitly named. They are simply "man" and "woman". It does not get more even than that. He does not treat his wife solely as a concubine, nor does he treat her as though she is incapable of making her own decisions. In fact, he explicitly tells her it's her choice. It could be argued he is trying to manipulate her through guilt, but it still stands that he at least tells her it's her choice. The same cannot be said for John or his poor wife.

The woman's role is not a cookie-cutter one where she is expected to simply bear children to pass on the father's name. Instead, he values her company and just wants her without having to divide his attention elsewhere. The man is selfish, but he is not misogynistic, and he does not confine her to a bedroom. He simply wants her time to himself and doesn't want children; just her.

The couple are on vacation, out in the open, to have fun. It is a stark contrast to John and his wife, secluded on a farm property away from civilization. The couple are out, experiencing the world and exposing themselves to different cultures. They are together in public and are having a discussion together about their future. Although there is a sense that the man does have a belief about what would be best for the woman, he simply speaks his mind and reiterates that he will support whatever choice she makes. Perhaps it's sly manipulation, or perhaps he truly does want to support her and is simply projecting out of fear.

There is, however, a marked difference between the two situations because having the child affects him as much as it affects her. It would change their relationship forever, and so, it does make sense for him to have an opinion about whether or not to bring a child into the world. The ending is a bit ambiguous, but the woman made a decision either way.

In the case of John and his wife, he assumes one hundred percent control over everything she does giving no thought as to her opinion on matters that are directly affecting her. He dictates her schedule, where she sleeps, who she sees (or doesn't see), what she does, and when she does it. Even if the man in "Hills Like White Elephants" were trying to strong-arm the woman into a choice, he is not dictating to her face, nor is he causing an identity crisis. He does not try to control her, and instead just wants to live an uncomplicated life with the person he loves. To him, he would rather not have the child. Already, that is a non-conforming idea. He is a tad peculiar in not wanting children as it is usually all a man wants as it ensures wealth passes on as well as his name.

The most problematic thing in "Hills Like White Elephants" is that she's drinking absinthe while pregnant. Perhaps this is a testament to her rejecting her role as a woman to have children, which in itself speaks to the fact that the couple seems well-matched. It is an awkward time to eavesdrop on the couple, but it is usually the difficult things that show a person's true colours; if so, we can see that the worst in the man in "Hills" is by and large decent, if not on the selfish side of things. He is, despite his wish to not be a father, willing to set his wishes aside and support her through whatever she chooses. That's love.

In "The Yellow Wallpaper", we see a controlling, abusing, and oppressive husband destroying the mind of his wife. He commits her to solitary confinement, and completely brainwashes her and belittles her to the point that she identifies with the wallpaper, an inanimate object, and sees herself within it, literally trapped.

We do not see such a dramatic, or problematic situation arise with the couple. We see a couple having an open conversation about a difficult subject. Perhaps John does love his wife. However, the way he goes about it is what ends up destroying her, and they are not supportive of one another, nor are they equals. In adopting a "male superiority" ideology, he inhibits any growth on his wife and in trying to help his wife, John ruins her. If that's not a prime example of classical tragedy, then nothing is.

[WORKS CITED]

Kelly, Joseph. Seagull Reader: Stories. 3rd ed., W. W. Norton & Co Inc, 2014, pp. 171-187, 201-206.