Comparison of the Yellow Wallpaper, Story of an Hour, and Gaslight

"The story was wrenched out of Gilman 's own life, and is unique in the

In the short stories “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, are stories about women who suffer from different conditions, but are very similar. In “The Story of an Hour” the main character suffers from an unknown heart condition, and becomes very detached from her husband. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the main character suffers from a psychological condition, and is taken care of by her husband John but slowly grows away from his care. While these women may have very different situations, they are very similar in the way they grow away from their husbands, feeling oppressed by society, and wanting to feel free.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, published in 1899, is a semi-autobiographical short story depicting a young woman’s struggle with depression that is virtually untreated and her subsequent descent into madness. Although the story is centered on the protagonist’s obsessive description of the yellow wallpaper and her neurosis, the story serves a higher purpose as a testament to the feminist struggle and their efforts to break out of their domestic prison. With reference to the works of Janice Haney-Peritz’s, “Monumental Feminism and Literature’s

Throughout history, women have struggled to be seen as equals and have had to fight for their freedom from the roles society placed upon them. Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman both use their literary works to show the challenges women went through, and how they battled for the freedoms they desperately wanted. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story about a woman that goes to a summer home to rest and get well under the supervision of her husband who is also a physician. Her husband decided it would be best if she sat in a room alone and did nothing. In the end, she becomes insane and finally finds her freedom. “The Story of An Hour” is about, Mrs. Mallard, a woman who has just found out her husband has died. Mrs. Mallard

     Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is as a wonderful example of the gothic horror genre. It was not until the rediscovery of the story in the early 1970’s that “The Yellow Wallpaper” was recognized as a feminist indictment of a male dominated society. The story contains many typical gothic trappings, but beneath the conventional façade hides a tale of repression and freedom told in intricate symbolism as seen through the eyes of a mad narrator.

Traditionally, men have held the power in society. Women have been treated as a second class of citizens with neither the legal rights nor the respect of their male counterparts. Culture has contributed to these gender roles by conditioning women to accept their subordinate status while encouraging young men to lead and control. Feminist criticism contends that literature either supports society’s patriarchal structure or provides social criticism in order to change this hierarchy. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts one women’s struggle against the traditional female role into which society attempts to force her and the societal reaction

In this essay I will be comparing the two short stories “The Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”. “The Story of an Hour”, written by Kate Chopin, is centered around a woman by the name Louise Mallard and her reaction after being informed of her husbands “death”, On the other hand “The Yellow Wallpaper” Written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is about Jane, A young, newly married mother who at the time is undergoing care because of her depression. Although both essays have their similarities and differences I will be focusing mainly on the themes of Freedom, Isolation and Oppression. I will also be focusing on how the themes appear within both short stories and do a compare and contrast about the way the themes appear in the two short stories.

Kate Chopin’s the most well-known work The Awakening and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” both initially published in 1899, present astoundingly analogous stories of the role of women in society. Both texts are narrated from the point of view of a female protagonist who breaks away from the restraining conventions of a male-ruled society before eventually emancipating through separation from the thinking world, via suicide in The Awakening and insanity in “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” Some would argue that the narrators are unreliable and the stories are misrepresented simply because

Gender inequality is defined as a social process by which people are treated differently, under similar circumstances, on the basis of gender. Gender inequality is a huge barrier for the development of humans. Although, over the year’s women have made huge progress in gaining some equality, they are still discriminated against, especially in terms of education, health, politics and in the labour market. This as a result leads to a negative effect of the development of a women’s abilities as well as their freedom of choice. The story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, demonstrates the struggle of a women to free herself from the suppression from a man. For many years, women are being controlled and overshadowed by men

Topics of great social impact have been dealt with in many different ways and in many different mediums. Beginning with the first women’s movement in the 1850’s, the role of women in society has been constantly written about, protested, and debated. Two women writers who have had the most impact in the on-going women’s movement are Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Awakening and The Yellow Wallpaper are two of feminist literature’s cornerstones and have become prolific parts of American literature. Themes of entrapment by social dictates, circumstance, and the desire for personal independence reside within each work and bond the two together.

In both stories, women are portrayed as unable to live their own lives or take care of themselves. It also indicates that women are constantly oppressed in marriage. In “A Story of an Hour” Louise, who already knows that her husband was a kind and loving soul, nonetheless feels a slight amount of joy when she believes that he is dead. Despite the love between husband and wife, Louise views Brently’s death as an escape from the oppression of marriage. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” your standard nineteenth-century middle-class marriage, with its rigid distinction between the “domestic” functions of the housewife and the “active” work of the working husband, ensured that women remained second-class citizens. The story shows that this division of

Both women in “Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” reacted the way they did to their husband's actions because they felt they were being oppressed which strongly affected them. In “Story of an Hour”, the main character has hidden joy due to the death of her husband, but when he returns she had a heart attack. She was filled with so much relief that she had finally been freed, only to realize she had to return to her subservient life. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator reacts so negatively to her “rest” treatment because it only worsened her condition. With other distractions or social interactions she would not have felt so trapped. Her entire life she had been ruled by a dominant male, whether it be

In the early nineteen century, women were not explicitly part of literature. they were used male pseudonym to publish their works. However, later in the century, there was a shift in women’s implication in literature. women began to be publicly recognized as writers, and they were using their writings to advocate for women’s rights and to reject stereotypes that were commonly associated with them. For example, in the early nineteen century, books and novels were mostly describing “piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity” as attributes of a good woman (Fortin). Writings by women were describing women that where rejecting values of the patriarchal society; women that wanted freedom and independence. The writings of Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman exemplify the features of the Feminist phase of female literary tradition. Published respectively in 1892 and 1895, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin are the quintessence of feminist literature. They both used characterization, setting, ad irony to protest a misogynistic society and to request women’s rights and autonomy.

In society, women were looked upon to be under the patriarchal control of men. People such as Donald Hall, writer of the book on Literary and Cultural Theory, explains his views on how “women have been denied social power and the right to various forms of self-expression (Hall 202).” Writers such as Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, (authors of the “Awakening”/”The Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow-Wallpaper” respectively), have taken these patriarchal views and have incorporated them into various stories that portray the oppression that women face in these communities. Ultimately, their sole purpose of expressing such matters are to help identify how the patriarchal control of men evidently impacts how women can express themselves as individuals.

The author shows how much the character needs freedom that the husband prevents her from getting it. This creates the complication and the plot of the story. She goes ahead to enhance it using strong characters and a vivid setting ( the house containing the yellow wall paper) which helps in maintaining the attention of the readers and also attracting more readers. In developing the plot, the author sends a significant amount of time on details and remains focused on it by ensuring that each entry in the journal made by the narrator has a meaning and adds to the overall progress of the story.