Women's Issues in The Awakening by Kate Chopin, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Souls Belated by Edith Wharton

Throughout the history of American Literature there has been a common theme of male oppression. Especially towards the end of the 19th century, before the first wave of feminism, women were faced with an unshakeable social prison. Husband, home and children were the only life they knew, many encouraged not to work. That being said, many female writers at the time, including Emily Dickinson and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, were determined to examine the mind behind the American woman, through the lens of mental illness and personal experience.

When the notorious topic of women’s role in society comes to mind writers like Kate Chopin and Mary Wilkins Freeman break the norms of how women in America were imagined to be through different cultures and regions. In both Kate Chopin’s and Mary Wilkins Freeman’s time period women are portrayed as an ample servant to their husbands. Together the texts show how the controlled understanding of the nineteenth century society, had on women. At that time of these writers, people were restrictive about the viewpoint of women’s place in society. Women could not really do much without their Husband or another male figure in their life , they really didn’t have a voice of their own. In the stories A New England Nun , Desiree’s Baby, The Story of an Hour, and The Storm, Mary and Kate have represented how this situation of the society affected women and their viewpoints about life and marriage.

Kate Chopin’s controversial novel, The Awakening, comprehends the frustrations and the triumphs in a woman’s life as she attempts to cope with the strict cultural demands. The protagonist Edna Pontellier challenges the norms of society as she abandons the stereotype of a “mother-woman”. The novel accounts Edna Pontellier’s journey toward a new vision of female and constantly examines and challenges the boundaries of a “mother-woman”. The continuous characterization of Edna throughout the book presents the idea that individuality and freedom of women could not be earned in the inhibiting society that she was trapped in.

Have you ever wondered what the lifestyles of Nineteenth Century women were like? Were they independent, career women or were they typical housewives that cooked, clean, watched the children, and catered to their husbands. Did the women of this era express themselves freely or did they just do what society expected of them? Kate Chopin was a female author who wrote several stories and two novels about women. One of her renowned works of art is The Awakening. This novel created great controversy and received negative criticism from literary critics due to Chopin's portrayal of women by Edna throughout the book.

Questioning Women’s Equal Rights led to an uproar during the 1800’s, within the literary world the re-establishment of such era was exposed, through Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899). The protagonist, Edna Pointillier was beared in mind as selfish: as she“rejected domesticity in favor of her own fulfillment”(Walker 5). In the course of identifying a white middle-class woman, “the United States, disseminated through novels, religious writings, and advice books.” Proclaimg to be a true woman, “she must be confined to the home, devoted to husband, and children,” and deliberately avoid employment and the sphere of politics (Smith-Rosenberg). Shockingly, the empowerment of middle-class women grew, as reform movements and campaigns resisting

Women are seen as weak, dependent, and as housewives. Feeling suffocated and pressured to uphold the standard of society women live in fear. As they cannot suppress the way society has portrayed them. Men are seen as dominant or superior over women and are in control of them. They didn’t have a voice because men would overlook them. Women alone could not be single otherwise would be perceived as unusual. Many are afraid of the reality of not being withheld within a dominant figure. In the book The Awakening by Kate Chopin, There are multiple men that come into Edna’s life trying to either control or repress her existence. Leonce-her husband, Robert-her lover, and the Coronel-her father. In some sort of way they belittle her physically, emotionally or mentally. They all have left a scar on her in the way that she feels the need to start to rebel. In order for her to experience life and feel free as a woman in her state of mind she needs to feel different and unique and not rudimentary like every other woman has accepted to be in her time period. Edna seeks independence and will overcome any obstacle and she will commit an act that no other rebellious or non-rebellious woman would ever think to do and the meaning behind her act is very powerful to feminism.

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.

Kate Chopin’s controversial novel, The Awakening, ignited turmoil because of her blatant disregard of the established 19th century perspective of women upholding strictly maternal and matrimonial responsibilities. Edna’s candid exploration of the restrictions on women through her liberal behavior in a conservative Victorian society makes her a literary symbol for feminist ideals. Despite denunciation from other people, Edna chooses individuality over conformity through her veering from traditional obligations. Edna indulges in her love of art, which is considered to conflict with her expected singular devotion to her household. Exploring her sexuality rather than repressing any sexual awareness constructs her feministic mentality.

In American literature, women have been portrayed differently depending on the sex and race of the author. Henry James who wrote “Daisy Miller: A Study” (1878) characterized Daisy as a tramp who breaks expatriate social customs. When a male writes about a woman, she is sometimes portrayed as a troublemaker and often up to no good. On the other hand, in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892), the narrator is trapped by domestic life. When a woman writes about women, they are usually victims of their society. James and Gilman each seem to display women differently because of their own sex, personal preferences, and experiences.

Literature changes as current events change and as the structure of society begins to shift. American feminist literature started to become prevalent during the Victorian era, or around the latter part of the 19th century. This is the time when the first wave of feminism in the United States hit. The Seneca Falls Convention - the first women’s rights convention - and the emergence of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony’s American Equal Rights Association in the middle of the 19th century are among some of the noteable events that sparked this movement in literature. Women across America were inspired by the changing of the times, and that is reflected in many American female authors’ writings.

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.

The unique style of Kate Chopin’s writing has influenced and paved the way for many female authors. Although not verbally, Kate Chopin aired political and social issues affecting women and challenging the validity of such restrictions through fiction. Kate Chopin, a feminist in her time, prevailed against the notion that a woman’s purpose was to only be a housewife and nothing more. Kate Chopin fortified the importance of women empowerment, self-expression, self-assertion, and female sexuality through creativity in her literary work.

Women in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s had specific roles determined by the males who were dominant in their society. Women began to write stories which told their gender roles in that era. The authors of these stories lived in this time period and their stories reflect a lot of the traditional roles that were expected of them. The author’s purposes, were to tell about how marriage imprisoned women in this period of time. Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s stories provide examples of the gender roles. Their reasoning of writing these stories was to call on women of this era to learn how to empower themselves in this society.

Through their works, Kate Chopin and Virginia Woolf were able to portray a certain relationship between women and society. While some literary pieces are optimistic towards women, others are not. In this case, The Awakening, a novella written by Kate Chopin, focuses on the inner battle that the main character Edna faces throughout her life. On the other hand, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, discusses ideas related to gender inequality. Both women seem to be facing inner turmoil that correlates back to the relationship between women and society during these time periods. Ultimately, their experiences are what drives them to change how they fit into societal norms. Therefore, the texts in this essay theorize the relationship between women and society in a way that can be encouraging towards women.

The literary novel The Awakening written by author Kate Chopin was groundbreaking in its time as a story following Edna Pontellier’s transformation from an obedient, traditional housewife and mother into a self-realized, sexually liberated and independent woman— all written during the Victorian era of patriarchal constraints and beliefs that a woman was fit to be only a wife and mother. Chopin introduces a multitude of feminist issues throughout the duration of the story, including the societal structures of motherhood, marital expectations and feminine liberation. The fact that Chopin’s novel addresses these issues is a testament to how radical and ahead of its time The Awakening was. Although this novel was originally published over a century ago, it is clear that the feminist topics that Chopin proposes in the novel are still relevant today in our modern day patriarchal society.