"The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was first published in 1892, and "The Story of an Hour" written by Kate Chopin, was written and first published under the title "The Dream of an Hour" in 1894. These two stories deal with the position of women in the late 1800’s. This era is especially interesting because women were still treated as second-class citizens. These two stories had a lot in common and shared a lot of the same views about life of women governed by the laws of men. Aside that both husbands, Mr. Mallard from "The Story of an Hour" and John from "The Yellow Wallpaper" are very similar as they both have a very strong hold and control over their wives, they also are very different such as John demonstrates …show more content…
Mrs. Mallard’s life has not been her own ever since she got married. When Louise marries Brently she becomes Mrs. Mallard, she loses her identity and assumes a new and strange one. “She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky” (Chopin 2). Love, in “The story of An Hour” I believe is somewhat superficial. Mrs. Mallard tells that “And yet she had loved him – sometimes. Often she had not” (Chopin 3). The short amount of time it took her to mourn the death of her husband also helps to support the argument that there was no real love in that marriage. When she learns of her husband's death, her thoughts on what life would be like without her husband are pleasing. "Free! Body and soul free!” (Chopin 3). Mrs. Mallard wants to live without her husband. She believes freedom is hers; however, when she finds out her husband is not dead; she had shock of her losing it again causes her to have a heart attack and die. However, death is eternal freedom for her.
These two husbands are very similar but also very different. Both husbands love their wives who are very weak and they both have a very strong hold and control over their women, but both are different type of male dominance. Each story had own way of demonstrating
A Critical Analysis of Formal Elements in the Short Story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Diverse authors use diverse strategies to catch a reader's attention. Both Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman were women ahead of their time; they wrote stories that were socially unacceptable but are now considered some of the greatest. In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, dies of a heart attack after hearing of her husband's death. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" with a blasphemous plot at the time: a woman, Jane, bedridden because of depression, begins to see a woman underneath the wallpaper of her rented mansion. By the end of the story, Jane believes that she is the woman under the wallpaper. In both stories, the diseased and doubted women enclose serious mental and
The stories of the Yellow Wallpaper and Story of an Hour are both stories that have deep meaning, and many hidden symbols. In both stories there is a woman who in some way is oppressed by some outside force and must find a way to overcome this oppression. While in both stories the main charcter goes through a different ordeal, The main theme behind these events are the same and the two experiences can compare to eachother. the events match in both women we oppressed by men and portrayed
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
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman takes the form of journal entries of a woman undergoing treatment for postpartum depression. Her form of treatment is the “resting cure,” in which a person is isolated and put on bed rest. Her only social interaction is with her sister-in-law Jennie and her husband, John, who is also her doctor. Besides small interactions with them, most of the time she is left alone. Society believes all she needs is a break from the stresses of everyday life, while she believes that “society and stimulus” (pg 347, paragraph 16) will make
The Yellow Paper is a symbolic story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It is a disheartening tale of a woman struggling to free herself from postpartum depression. This story gives an account of an emotionally and intellectual deteriorated woman who is a wife and a mother who is struggling to break free from her metal prison and find peace. The post-partum depression forced her to look for a neurologist doctor who gives a rest cure. She was supposed to have a strict bed rest. The woman lived in a male dominated society and wanted indictment from it as she had been driven crazy by as a result of the Victorian “rest-cure.” Her husband made sure that she had a strict bed rest by separating her from her child by taking her to recuperate in
The story reads, “And yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not” (Chopin 2) This shows that although she did feel love for him, sometimes, it is not the reason why she married him. It can be inferred that she had no option and marriage was a necessity for a woman’s life back then. Similarly, Mrs. Mallard ponders, “What did it matter! What could the unsolved mystery…” by her stating that love is a “mystery” to her we can infer that love was not present in her marriage (Chopin 2). If she were in love with Mr. Mallard, then she would have a clear understanding of how love feels like.
"The Yellow Wallpaper", by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and "The Story of an Hour", by Kate Chopin are two very similar stories. Both women were controlled by their husbands who caused them to feel an intense desire for freedom. However, the women in the stories had different life experiences and different reactions to their own freedom as a result of their different personalities.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" and "The Story of an Hour" are two very similar stories. Both deal with middle-aged women who long to attain their freedom. They share the same theme, but convey the message differently in terms of style and quality. The two stories are about women who are fighting for freedom, happiness, and the ability to be truly expressive in any way possible.
Feminist studies generally focus on the role that hysterical diagnoses and treatments played in reinforcing the prevailing, male-dominant gender roles through the subversion, manipulation and degrading of female experience through the use of medical treatments and power structures. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “ The Yellow Wallpaper” is a perfect example of these themes. In writing this story, Charlotte Perkins Gilman drew upon her own personal experiences with hysteria. The adoption of the sick-role was a product of-and a reaction against gender norms and all of the pressures and tensions that their satisfaction demanded. Gilman’s essay uses autobiographical experiences displayed as doppelganger quality the in the main narrator of the
On the other hand both stories give the reader a taste of what marriage must have been like in the 1900s and for somewhat life could still be for women now. Both the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Mrs. Mallard in "Story of an Hour" it seems as though both wives feel repressed. It shows that the
"There comes John, and I must put this away -- he hates to have me write a
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in Hartford, Connecticut on July 3, 1860. From the day of her birth, she was a woman ahead of her time. In 1890, she wrote The Yellow Wallpaper a story about a woman who was oppressed by her husband and her illness. This, Gilman’s most famous work, was written from her own experience in life.
When looking at two nineteenth century works of change for two females in an American society, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Stephen Crane come to mind. A feminist socialist and a realist novelist capture moments that make their readers rethink life and the world surrounding. Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was first published in 1892, about a white middle-class woman who was confined to an upstairs room by her husband and doctor, the room’s wallpaper imprisons her and as well as liberates herself when she tears the wallpaper off at the end of the story. On the other hand, Crane’s 1893 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is the realist account of a New York girl and her trials of growing up with an alcoholic mother and slum life world. The
"The Yellow Wallpaper" is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1890 and eventually published in 1892 in the New England Magazine and in William Dean Howells' collection, Great Modern American Stories (Shumaker 94). The story was original not only because of its subject matter, but also because it is written in the form of a loosely connected journal. It follows the narrator's private thoughts which become increasingly more confusing. The structure consists of disjointed sentences as the narrator gradually descends more and more into her madness as her only escape from an oppressive husband and society.