Self-sufficiency in Women
Before the nineteen- hundreds, women were subject to the needs and wants of men. Women were looked upon as dependent on others, house workers, cleaners, care takers, and pleasers by the world. Women were never seen as independent nor strong. This began to change once women started to go against the stereotypes and began to do things men did. One of the changes happened in literature, and the survival and empowerment in “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the perseverance and defiance in “Sweat” written by Zora Neale Hurston, and the melancholy and detachment in “ The Story of An Hour” written by Kate Chopin are great examples of it. In all three of these stories, the lead character is a female, and all three characters show self-sufficiency, which men did not believe women had until not too long ago.
In the first story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator, who is married to a physician, suffers from what her husband calls “temporary nervous depression”(Gilman 648). But in actuality, she is suffering from postpartum depression, and has been forbidden to perform any type of activity other than domestic work as a part of her cure (Gilman …show more content…
In this story the main character, Louise Mallard, is told that her husband, Brently Mallard, has died due to a train accident. She then locks herself into a room and her happiness overcomes her sadness. She starts to feel the power of freedom and a start of a new life by herself. After a little time in the room alone Louise sister, Josephine, believes Louise will make herself sick and asks if she can come out the room. Louise then comes out the room and walks happily down the stairs only to see her husband standing oblivious to the situation. Right then, Louise dies of a heart attack of “the joy that
Before the nineteen- hundreds, women were subject to the needs and wants of men. Women were looked upon as dependent on others, house workers, cleaners, care takers, and pleasers by the world. Women were never seen as independent nor strong. This began to change once women started to go against the stereotypes and began to do things men did. One of the changes happened in literature, and the survival and empowerment in “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the perseverance and defiance in “Sweat” written by Zora Neale Hurston, and the melancholy and detachment in “ The Story of An Hour” written by Kate Chopin are great examples of it. In all three of these stories, the lead character is a female, and all three characters show self-sufficiency, which men did not believe women had until not too long ago.
In the first story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator, who is married to a physician, suffers from what her husband calls “temporary nervous depression”(Gilman 648). But in actuality, she is suffering from postpartum depression, and has been forbidden to perform any type of activity other than domestic work as a part of her cure (Gilman …show more content…
In this story the main character, Louise Mallard, is told that her husband, Brently Mallard, has died due to a train accident. She then locks herself into a room and her happiness overcomes her sadness. She starts to feel the power of freedom and a start of a new life by herself. After a little time in the room alone Louise sister, Josephine, believes Louise will make herself sick and asks if she can come out the room. Louise then comes out the room and walks happily down the stairs only to see her husband standing oblivious to the situation. Right then, Louise dies of a heart attack of “the joy that