The Yellow Wallpaper

After reading The Yellow Wallpaper, we can see that Gilman through her writing was trying to affect change by demonstrating the gender division that existed kept woman in state of ignorance and child like behaviors, not letting women over excel. We can see this with the woman in the yellow wall paper, her husband would do everything for her, he made the decisions of what she was allowed to do such as not letting her go see her cousins and picking out the room where she would be staying. (pg. 356) Throughout the text we see that her husband is very controlling of her actions, she is not capable of going downstairs, or even to write in her journal, "there comes John, and I must put this away, he hates to have me write a word." (pg. 356). I believe that all his behaviors towards her made the narrator almost obsessed with the yellow wallpaper because for once she felt like she was in control, which then lead her to become almost insane. By this I think Gilman demonstrated that woman "were not able to handle being in control and have the power to make decisions on there own because of the fact that they have never been given the opportunity to do so.

In Ragged Dick, I believe that Alger too was trying to affect change by demonstrating, that even though one can be born and raised in the streets, it is possible to succeed in life. Alger uses ragged Dick a young boy living out on the streets of New York, who has no family, no home and a job that is not stable. Through this I think that Alger wanted readers to understand that through hard work it was possible to accomplish many things. He did this by using a young boy that many could pity and maybe use as a way to compare themselves to.

I think that both Gilman and Alger that change is possible but it just takes time and work to reach to the point of being successful.