The Oppressive Force in Marriage

   In their works, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin show that freedom was not universal in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The three works, "The Yellow Wallpaper," "At the 'Cadian Ball," and "The Storm" expose the oppression of women by society.  This works also illustrate that those women who were passive in the face of this oppression risk losing not only their identity, but their sanity as well.

Gilman and Chopin use a home setting to symbolize the woman’s place in society. “The Story of an Hour” takes place in Mrs. Louise Mallard’s home; “The Yellow Wall-Paper” occurs in a mansion that the protagonist’s husband has leased for the summer for his wife’s recuperation from

“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.

Kate Chopin's story The Awakening and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story The Yellow Wallpaper draw their power from two truths: First, each work stands as a political cry against injustice and at the socio/political genesis of the modern feminist movement. Second, each text is a gatekeeper of a new literary history. Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman seem to initiate a new phase in textual history where literary conventions are revised to serve an ideology representative of the "new" feminine presence. Two conventions in particular seem of central importance: "marriage" and "propriety".

The structure of the text, particularly evident in the author’s interactions with her husband, reveals the binary opposition between the façade of a middle-class woman living under the societal parameters of the Cult of Domesticity and the underlying suffering and dehumanization intrinsic to marriage and womanhood during the nineteenth century. While readers recognize the story for its troubling description of the way in which the yellow wallpaper morphs into a representation of the narrator’s insanity, the most interesting and telling component of the story lies apart from the wallpaper. “The Yellow Wallpaper” outwardly tells the story of a woman struggling with post-partum depression, but Charlotte Perkins Gilman snakes expressions of the true inequality faced within the daily lives of nineteenth century women throughout the story. Although the climax certainly surrounds the narrator’s overpowering obsession with the yellow wallpaper that covers the room to which her husband banished her for the summer, the moments that do not specifically concern the wallpaper or the narrator’s mania divulge a deeper and more powerful understanding of the torturous meaning of womanhood.

In “The Story of an Hour”, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and “Trifles”, the authors all question the institution of marriage through the emerging theme of the oppression of women. In each of these works, women are shown trapped in confining marriages. While marriage is supposed to be seen as one of the most beautiful and perfect sanctities life has to offer, these authors portray it as more of a bittersweet agony that women are forced to endure. Chopin, Gilman, and Glaspell use a combination of symbolism and perspective in their literature to bring about this theme of female oppression. With this theme, the authors cause the readers to take a more feminist perspective and question the institution of marriage through the eye of the average housewife of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

During the early 1800’s, the rights of men were still deemed more important than the rights of women. This issue was finally brought into discussion in the late 1800’s, where women now started to fight for their rights. This time period also brought around the start of feminism. The fact that Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is a feminine story to make a statement about men controlling women is shown through three main points: what the woman sees in the yellow wallpaper, how the husband treats the woman, and also through the narrator herself.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is known as the first American writer who has feminist approach. Gilman criticises inequality between male and female during her life, hence it is mostly possible to see the traces of feminist approach in her works. She deals with the struggles and obstacles which women face in patriarchal society. Moreover, Gilman argues that marriages cause the subordination of women, because male is active, whereas female plays a domestic role in the marriage. Gilman also argues that the situation should change; therefore women are only able to accomplish full development of their identities. At this point, The Yellow Wallpaper is a crucial example that shows repressed woman’s awakening. It is a story of a woman who

Therefore, She’s been forced to be submissive and to do what her husband told her. On this time period is where ‘The Story of an Hour” takes place and this was Mrs. Mallards conflict. There was a time that she wasn’t even allowed to go outside the house. She was very upset about this, but she didn’t had the right to speak up or fight back. That’s when she heard the good/bad new she didn’t felt anything about him. She had to act that she was sad, so the family didn’t noticed how abusive her life was. That’s why her family didn’t speak up, this was her secret and no one’s allowed to

In a short story titled “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin in the late 1800s, Mrs. Mallard represents a key character in the story, also known as the protagonist. This story discusses a loveless and repressive marriage between Mrs. Louise Mallard and Mr. Brently Mallard. This identifies as unusual, considering that in this time period society deemed that a woman simply could not live without a man. Kate Chopin introduces Mrs. Mallard as an independent yet repressed woman, which automatically infers problems between the married couple. Mrs. Mallard unveils her true-self after losing her husband. She becomes overwhelmed with independence and awaits the new possibilities of living a life she can claim her own. Mrs. Mallard represents a woman who struggles with personal independence, emotional sufferings, and physical ailments.

They was confined with living through a man, a woman was never seen as an equal even in an loving relationship. Woman in this time was basically living there lives through their significant others, they wasn’t expected to live life how they wanted just to live life how their men wanted and would end up loosing their selves in the process. The confinement in the story "the Story of an Hour" portrays that Mrs. Mallard was controlled by this marriage. Even though Mr. Mallard Treated her fairly, and she loved him occasionally, she still wanted and out. She wanted to escape this marriage because she felt like she was being controlled by it and she wanted to be herself . She believed that marriages robes people of independence, she also believed that all women and men oppress one another even if they do it out of the goodness of their heart. Everyone needs a break at some point which is why she was so over joyed that she thought that her husband had died. She felt like she was in control again of her life. Usually persons would just say why not get a divorce, but in that time back in the day divorce wasn’t anything easy. Society back then is also a confinement because it didn’t like change. As we can see that Mrs. Mallard is free different in her conformist society, which is a great taboo. In the story Mrs. Mallard never given a first name throughout the story, Mr. Mallard is given a

“The Story of an Hour” has the main character Mrs. Mallard show thoughts and emotions that can support and go against the feminist theory. At the beginning of the story, Mrs. Mallard is overcome with grief with the loss of her husband. This shows that the female is an emotional person compared to men. It was natural to know that she would be upset with the death of her husband, but the story had both her sister and her husband’s friend be there to break the news to her. Mrs. Mallard has heart problems which can make the reader see her as a weaker person right at the beginning of the story. From the start, we as readers are told to see Mrs. Mallard as a naturally weaker character.

Throughout history, women have been mistreated and have been valued as a property of men. Specifically the oppression of women in the 19th centuries was when it was a major issue. Oppression of women may not be a big discussion in today’s world but it certainly doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. In Kate Chopin's “The Story of an Hour” Louise Mallard plays the common role of the “house wife” where she lives her life in the shadow of her husband. Louise Mallard’s marriage with Brently Mallard was considered the norm back then and it is still now as well to a certain degree. Women’s role back then in marriages was to clean, cook and make babies. Rarely did they ever have a life of their own where they pursed a carrier and even when they

In “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard finds out her husband died. At first Mallard is sad but, after a while she realizes she’s free and becomes a new women who can make her own choices and live for herself. Mallard walks out her room happy until she sees her husband alive and drops dead where she stood. Back in the day people would get married young without really knowing who the other person was, Mallard originally had a bad heart but I believe the author Kate Chopin had a different message in the text that males took offensively when Mallard died. This story can have a lot of different messages but I think the main one is being a slave as a women in a marriage.

The Story of an Hour is short, yet, contains important examples of gender roles in marriage. They are important because they represent how women felt married in the 19th century due to male dominance that manifested throughout marriages all over the world. In The Story of an Hour, Mrs. Mallard is a wife that is, at first, seen as distraught, because of her husband’s death. She starts to cry and run to her room, to soon be lifted with the joy that she is now free. It is clear that she felt trapped in the marriage and is now happy that there is no one controlling her any longer. Mrs. Mallard is a prime example of women in marriages in the 19th century, and even some today. Unfortunately, they have to experience sexism from their husbands. Women are dominated by men in marriage and are expected to acquire the stereotypical gender roles.