Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” seem to be about very different topics. Both of these stories depict lives that many women had to live through in the past. However, the women in both stories go through a very similar life in the stories. Both women originate from the nineteenth century. They also are oppressed by their husbands, because during those times women lived in a “man’s world.” The oppression that these women are put through give them even more desire for freedom which they both obtain by very bizarre circumstances.
The first issue is about the general inequality of women during the nineteenth century. The norm for a wife in a marriage is to serve her husband instead of being an equal with him. Louise Mallard and the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” symbolize this stereotype of society during the nineteenth century where a woman’s actions and reactions were controlled and looked down upon. In Mrs. Mallard’s situation, she can not grasp …show more content…
The narrator and Mrs. Mallard both get their freedom in extraordinary odd ways. Mrs. Mallard gets a glimpse of her freedom when she was told that her husband has died, but her only true freedom is when she dies of the shock of her husband still alive and that he would oppress her again. When she died the doctors said it was a “joy that kills,” but it actually was the only way her to get out and be free (Chopin 116). In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator gets her freedom at the cost of her sanity that is caused by all the things that limited a woman in the nineteenth century. The narrator said, “I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” (Gilman 387). Freeing the woman in the wallpaper, also frees the narrator from the oppression of her marriage. These are extraordinary ways to avoid the usual of society and become something that they don’t pertain
The first issue is about the general inequality of women during the nineteenth century. The norm for a wife in a marriage is to serve her husband instead of being an equal with him. Louise Mallard and the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” symbolize this stereotype of society during the nineteenth century where a woman’s actions and reactions were controlled and looked down upon. In Mrs. Mallard’s situation, she can not grasp …show more content…
The narrator and Mrs. Mallard both get their freedom in extraordinary odd ways. Mrs. Mallard gets a glimpse of her freedom when she was told that her husband has died, but her only true freedom is when she dies of the shock of her husband still alive and that he would oppress her again. When she died the doctors said it was a “joy that kills,” but it actually was the only way her to get out and be free (Chopin 116). In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator gets her freedom at the cost of her sanity that is caused by all the things that limited a woman in the nineteenth century. The narrator said, “I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” (Gilman 387). Freeing the woman in the wallpaper, also frees the narrator from the oppression of her marriage. These are extraordinary ways to avoid the usual of society and become something that they don’t pertain