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. …show more content…
The second type of freedom is “Freedom to”, it emerges after we achieve “Freedom from” society’s grip and not following society’s values but making our own. The third kind of freedom is “Freedom to be”. “Freedom to be” emerges when we are more conscious. We need to be the ones that move our own life’s not letting others do that for us. It’s not just about doing whatever we want but about having the freedom to be whom we were meant to be. We see the theme of freedom in “The Story of an Hour” after reading Louise Mallard’s reaction when her sister tells Louise of her husband’s tragic “death” we see that Mrs. Mallard’s was “possessed” by the concept of freedom. We really understand what is happening when she says under her breath: "free, free, free!”. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the theme of freedom corresponds with Jane feeling that she does not have any freedom in her life. Jane feels controlled by her environment and her husband because she couldn’t even pick the room she wanted to live in. We can infer she has no freedom because her husband decides everything for her and due to his strictness …show more content…
The Freudian Regression theory states that Psychological repression, “is the psychological attempt made by an individual to repel one's own desires and impulses toward pleasurable instincts by excluding the desire from one's consciousness and holding or subduing it in the unconscious”. Sigmund Freud believed that In order to face problems in life, the ego employs defense mechanisms. These mechanisms function unconsciously to keep away unpleasant feelings. Repression was the first defense mechanism that Freud discovered and is thought to be the most important. Repression is one of the unconscious mechanisms employed by the ego to avoid a disturbing thought from being conscious. Normally the thoughts that are repressed are those of guilt. Freud believed that repression could sometimes have two stages which had to do with the aspects of personality “ego” and “super ego” and the individual’s sense of “good” and “bad”. The first stage of Repression which is called “Primary Repression” is realizing and determining what is good and what is bad The Second stage of repression starts to take place when a person notices that acting on some desires could cause anxiety. Repression is seen in “The Story of an Hour” and in “The Yellow Wallpaper” in different ways. We can see that in “The Yellow Wallpaper” Jane is a depressed woman who can’t handle to be alone
beginning of time. From early neolithic ages where the cavemen took woman as ownership to
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.
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 Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman written in the 1890s both reflect gender roles of this time, specifically women’s roles. In these stories both of the women are oppressed by their marriages, and by the end of the stories both wish to be rid of their husbands. Also, in both of these stories these women experience mental illnesses, mainly depression. These illnesses were looked at as something minor during this time, was it because psychologists were uneducated, or because as women their mental stability did not really matter? These stories connect so well because of their work to bring to the surface the reality of gender roles in the 1800s. Even though these stories were fictional their ideas were very real. By comparing how men and women were treated during this time, and how they are treated more equally now, it shows that with time American has come a long way.
The Story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a great expression of women’s oppression in the 19th century. The story introduces readers to a woman frustrating in her life and suffering from a nervous depression and her marriage as the yellow wallpaper is causing her a real insanity. Having a background about the timing and the setting that the story is written in helps the reader to internalize the whole meaning of the story and understand its important details. The story is told by a narrator using an anxious tone, and she is being angry and sarcastic at the same time. The woman mentions that her husband has taken her to a summer vacation. So, the story takes
Women in history stood best known for a less ascendant sex in the mid-nineteen centuries. Since times have gone by women had fought for their equal rights and freedom. There had been many stereotypes, where the women were considered as a slave to the men’s because the women’s position was to be the homemakers and a mother to their children, while the men’s are out socializing with others. If they were not happy with the marriage, they cannot just walk out or complain because a women role is to endure all these pains without a word coming out of their mouths. Two out of the ordinary short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Story of An Hour,” mostly focused on a women’s dilemma that they faced near the 19th century. The two main characters in the short stories show some resemblances in some ways, but both characters portrayed them in different ways of how they dealt their sorrows in their marriages.
"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.
Many critics might agree that what makes a work of literature great is its attention to detail. Subtleties in a story can truly immerse the reader in its plot and provide a new level of storytelling. This is especially important in the short stories “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell. All three stories are notable feminist literary works published between the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. They concentrate on the struggles of women against their own husbands and against society as a whole, in which women in these works dealt with sexism, abuse, repression, and confinement in their forced domestic roles. Uniquely, all three stories also feature their main conflicts within a confined setting, often limited to one or two rooms in a house. While this detail may go unnoticed to some, the specific settings of “The Story of an Hour”; “The Yellow Wallpaper”; and “A Jury of Her Peers” play a role in furthering the theme of the domestic confinement and
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
Marriage has often been described as one of the most beautiful and powerful unions one human can form with another. It is the sacred commitment and devotion that two people share in a relationship that makes marriage so appealing since ancient times, up until today. To have and to hold, until death do us part, are the guarantees that two individuals make to one another as they pledge to become one in marriage. It is easy to assume that the guarantee of marriage directly places individuals in an everlasting state of love, affection, and support. However, over the years, marriage has lost its fairy
In addition the intense desire for freedom is even more obvious in "The Story of an Hour." Mrs. Mallard's craving for freedom is so strong that when she is given the news of her husband's death, she is relieved that "there would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself" (Chopin 2). It seems as though she wants to live her own life without having her husband tell her what to do all the time.
In "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonist symbolizes the effect of the oppression of women in society in the Nineteenth Century. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the author reveals the narrator is torn between hate and love, but emotion is difficult to determine. The effects are produced by the use of complex themes used in the story, which assisted her oppression and reflected on her self-expression.
is evident in “An Story of an Hour” that the protagonist lead a very sheltered life due to her illness and
* Story of an Hour and Yellow Wallpaper have challenges that were faced by the protagonists, setting looked to be in the same era with men being in charge of their wives lives.