Nick Clark
Professor Migan
11-28-2016
ENG 203
Compare “Liberation of Women from The Awakening and The Yellow Wallpaper” Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening present similar ideas of what women could do and cannot do in society. Both stories were published around the same time and talk about how these two women separate themselves from the rest of the world by Edna Pontellier committing suicide in “The Awakening” and the women going insane in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The significance about these women is that they would rather give up their life and their sanity, then to endure the control of another person. The only way for these women to successfully achieve total liberation from a male focused …show more content…
The only way these female protagonists can achieve this, is to find a drastic mean. In “The Awakening” even when Edna Pontellier left Mr. Pontellier and moved out she still didn’t feel satisfied. She felt her only way to escape was to commit suicide. Chopin states this scene by saying “The foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents about her ankles. She walked out. The water was chill, but she walked on. The water was deep, but she lifted her white body and reached out with a long, sweeping stroke. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace” (Chopin, 778). The same thing goes with the female character in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, as the women is isolated and physical confined in room upstairs because her husband believes she is mentally ill. With being isolated in this room for a long time, it causes the female protagonist to go utterly crazy, as she turns insane as the only way to break free from this entrapment. Gilman states this scene by saying “Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks out horribly. And the pattern just enjoys it. All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision” (Gilman, …show more content…
In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman states the protagonist broke free from the wallpaper by saying “And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back” (Gilman, 274). Where in “The Awakening” Mrs. Pontellier seized her fear by going out into the ocean as Chopin states it “She remembered the night she swam far out, and recalled the terror that seized her at the fear of being unable to regain the shore. Comparing both the sea and the wallpaper, they act as a cage, as trapping the women in a bedroom or on land with society. Before both moments, the women from both stories did not feel liberated. The narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is haunted by her obsession of freeing the women in the wallpaper, Where Mrs. Pontellier is growing tired with the desire for an unobtainable man. Both women know by breaking these barriers is crucial of breaking free of social restraints and
Professor Migan
11-28-2016
ENG 203
Compare “Liberation of Women from The Awakening and The Yellow Wallpaper” Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening present similar ideas of what women could do and cannot do in society. Both stories were published around the same time and talk about how these two women separate themselves from the rest of the world by Edna Pontellier committing suicide in “The Awakening” and the women going insane in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The significance about these women is that they would rather give up their life and their sanity, then to endure the control of another person. The only way for these women to successfully achieve total liberation from a male focused …show more content…
The only way these female protagonists can achieve this, is to find a drastic mean. In “The Awakening” even when Edna Pontellier left Mr. Pontellier and moved out she still didn’t feel satisfied. She felt her only way to escape was to commit suicide. Chopin states this scene by saying “The foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents about her ankles. She walked out. The water was chill, but she walked on. The water was deep, but she lifted her white body and reached out with a long, sweeping stroke. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace” (Chopin, 778). The same thing goes with the female character in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, as the women is isolated and physical confined in room upstairs because her husband believes she is mentally ill. With being isolated in this room for a long time, it causes the female protagonist to go utterly crazy, as she turns insane as the only way to break free from this entrapment. Gilman states this scene by saying “Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks out horribly. And the pattern just enjoys it. All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision” (Gilman, …show more content…
In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman states the protagonist broke free from the wallpaper by saying “And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back” (Gilman, 274). Where in “The Awakening” Mrs. Pontellier seized her fear by going out into the ocean as Chopin states it “She remembered the night she swam far out, and recalled the terror that seized her at the fear of being unable to regain the shore. Comparing both the sea and the wallpaper, they act as a cage, as trapping the women in a bedroom or on land with society. Before both moments, the women from both stories did not feel liberated. The narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is haunted by her obsession of freeing the women in the wallpaper, Where Mrs. Pontellier is growing tired with the desire for an unobtainable man. Both women know by breaking these barriers is crucial of breaking free of social restraints and