The word egalitarianism stems from the French word égal, meaning equal. This terms definition is defined as “a belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic affairs; a social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people”. This definition has deeply rooted meaning that is tied into many years of history and oppression; these ideas have also been proven to be the foundation for almost all forms of revolutions and fights in the struggle for human equality. The quote "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." Spoken by Martin Luther King Jr., is one of the most representative quotes of the term egalitarianism and was one of the many powerful quotes in his fight for black equality in America. The fight for equality isn’t only seen in revolutions and speeches; it comes up time and time again throughout the history literature in different forms based upon the time period.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was one of these bold and brave authors that lead the charge for equality in her time period with the use of her literature. The piece, The Yellow Wallpaper uses the main character to exemplify the oppressive hold society had on women in this time period. “The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over. Then in the very ' bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots, she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard. And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern - it strangles so:…”(189 Gilman). This quote expresses how the stranger in the wall is a not representation of herself but one of all women in this time period. It expresses how women want to break the restraints or “bars” put upon them by society. These restrictions society puts on people causes people to repress their true selves, thus create strangers inside of people because the fear of public persecution for doing or thinking against the social norm.
The short story Say Yes by Tobias Wolff is similar to The Yellow Wallpaper in many ways. Both exemplify how the ideas and social norms of society don’t just put restraints and oppress the people living in them, they create strangers and suppress the true identity of the individual. "They don't come from the same culture as we do. Listen to them sometime - they even have their own language. That's okay with me, I like hearing them talk" - he did; for some reason it always lifted his mood - "but it's different. A person from their culture and a person from our culture could never really know each other"(1 Wolff). This quote explains how the ideas of society in that time period were forced upon him, shaping his view of the world and caused him to develop an inequality between races. “Oh boy, he thought. He said, "Don't take my word for it. Look at the statistics. Most of those marriages break up"(1 Wolff). These false ideas and statistics society installed on him caused him to suppress his true self and allowed for him to become a stranger to his own wife. This is very similar to the woman from The Yellow Wallpaper, society installed these false statistics or ideas that the rest cure would help the main character and many other women of that time period. Only through time and advocates of egalitarianism proved that both of theses thoughts and statistics of society in those time periods were false.
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