Gender Roles & the Mundane

The Mother Knot and The Yellow Wallpaper both construe the hardships of woman/motherhood post baby. As new mothers, each finds herself hard pressed to become a member of the ‘domesticated’ woman. The theme that sticks out through both of these works is the boredom each woman faces, yet is unable to voice from either fear of being labeled a bad mother or from having other people unwilling to see it. It seems strange that the author of Mother Knot would find herself unwilling to voice this opinion, as she clearly thinks these thoughts in her head. Her conversations with other women even prove that she is different, often looking forward to the unusual reactions of her conversation partners.
It is interesting to note that although both of these women’s problems stem from the births of their children, The Yellow Wallpaper focuses more on the mother and her familial situation rather than the baby, supposedly the beginning source of her discomfort. I would call her ‘disease’ post partum depression; however the doctors (her husband included) felt that it was a nervous disorder. The benefit of allowing the reader to relate only to the mother, I think, captures and thrusts the reader into a true sense of what new motherhood possibly feels like. So anyone, male or female, young or old, can grasp her insanity and feelings of being pulled in so many different directions and finding oneself groundless; the melee of motherhood without a child. In previous classes we were talking about the need to find a quiet space to write. In this piece of work, the author finds herself enclosed and almost suffocating, her writing her only release of the accumulating emotions. So is this ‘vortex’ as mentioned by other authors draining? The author has to do her writing in secret as her family believes that it will hinder her recovery. She on the other hand finds it liberating, however it is within her writing that we begin to feel the madness within her mind and within her fixation on the yellow wallpaper.
The Mother Knot finds the mundane too discomforting, boring, much like the author of Yellow Wallpaper. Her constant search for someone to exchange quips with, someone who is not as satisfied with this style of living as she is, forces her to meet new people. This also, however, helps her to develop a bond with her child. There is definitely tension in her interaction with the baby. In one sentence I think she clearly underlines the trials of motherhood “’let’s go get him now’, I would say, wanting to hold him or hit him but hating to lie there silently listening to him” (Lazarre 68). There are so many different heightened emotions running at once. She wants to be a mother running to stop his crying, out of need for quiet, out of need to be comforting, or just simply taking action. It seems as if the child, since its birth has brought a constant need to take action, as if her life before was still. This stillness, however, replicates itself in her housing conditions, thus her search for the chaos of motherhood. This chaos is developed in the group meetings that she has put together.
Another fascinating point to bring up is the role of father in both of these readings. In Mother Knot the father is a student, his role summed up by a conversation with another woman commenting on washing her husband’s pants; “ He’s very busy, has a lot of pressure on him, stays up all night studying, I have to do my part, I don’t mind” (Lazarre 66). The author can’t get over this woman’s complacency and ultimate acceptance of her role as wife and mother. She even comments on the fact that she felt most attractive when she was a working woman (Lazarre 63). What does this say about motherhood? Clearly she sees herself resigned to this role, and yearns to be working at something. So what does this say about the idea of a working mother: is it even possible? This idea of the working mother doesn’t necessarily happen for her, but it does happen for a man whose wife left him. He had to take on the duties of mother, a complete role reversal. It is of note that he was able to go to school and take care of his children, so why couldn’t the mothers in this piece of work? Furthermore, this concept of mothers not being able to work and take care of children, while it seems men can is dramatically emphasized in the following idea. In the beginning the author wrote that women addressed her anger towards men and took it out on their children. Since that was not fair she would turn it inward creating creased, unbecoming lines on her face. However when this man asserted this role the lines on his face made him more attractive (Lazarre 64, 77). The role of father in Yellow Paper is quite the opposite as portrayed in Mother Knot. He is the nurturing type, always looking to her health, to the point where he is always there. However we see this nurturing role towards the wife and not directed towards the baby. In this sense the two stories connect. The male is distant towards the child, what does this mean in its application? Perhaps these two works are more about gender roles and their perception in society than they are about new motherhood.