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Essay Comparing The Yellow Wallpaper And The Story Of An Hour

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“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin have similarities that include character traits, controversial feminist backgrounds, and time period; and their differences, including setting, and the final fates for the women. Both written in the 19th century, the stories confront patriarchal ideas of women and their relationships with their husbands. But their differences main contrast is the country setting for “The Yellow Wallpaper” and the city setting for “The Story of an Hour” and a slightly different end for the women. Both stories’ inherently feminist backgrounds allow the stories to challenge society at the time. Both women’s husbands are given domineering personalities regardless of good …show more content…

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman writes that John took his wife away to a private estate far away from others, meaning the setting is more rural. However, In “The Story of an Hour,” the setting is briefly hinted at being more urban or suburban with one sentence, “In the street below a peddler was crying his wares.” Because most peddlers stick to urban/suburban areas, it is appropriate to describe the setting as such. While the next difference could be described as a similarity, it is important to note that while both women’s ends were tragic, they were in fact different. In the ending of the “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Jane slips into psychosis. Jane’s descent into to madness includes seeing women in the wallpaper, which leads her to strip it down to free them, only to end with her believing that she is one of the escape women herself. Yet in “The Story of an Hour,” after Mrs. Mallard sees her husband after the false claim that he is dead, she has a heart attack. Ending in madness and death, both stories ends are tragic for both women, but serve a purpose. Without these ends the stories full shock effect would not exist. The purpose of the authors writing these stories was to trigger social change, and the stories needed ends that showed how women’s devalued status greatly affected

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