There once was a time when women were to be married, have children, and tend to their husband’s needs. A time where divorce was unspoken of. The main characters in “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are prime examples of this type of marriage. Within “The Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” the wives are trapped in their marriages- like many woman- but Mrs. Mallard experiences what it feels like to be free while the narrator from “The Yellow Wallpaper” demonstrates what it is like to truly be imprisoned.
The time period during “The Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” took place when filing for a divorce was a mist of whispers. In “The Story of an Hour” the reader …show more content…
The first symbol in “The Story of an Hour” is the open window: “There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window” (Chopin, 1174). This imagery gives Mrs. Mallard insight into how her life can be when free. Furthermore, “the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air” (Chopin, 1174). This excerpt describes a new season for a new beginning, and the rain washed away the past to start anew. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the obvious symbol is the wallpaper. The narrator says “the pattern is torturing” (Gilman, 555). The narrator is often troubled by the paper’s pattern, or lack thereof. The undefined pattern represents the cage that women are trapped in by their marriages: “At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars” (Gilman, 555). After spending much time gazing at the yellow wallpaper she notices a woman encaged behind the pattern: “By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is a pattern that keeps her so still” (Gilman, 555). Later on, the reader then learns that she is in fact the woman behind the bars. Moreover, Mrs. Mallard’s symbol represents freedom while the narrator from “The Yellow Wallpaper,” symbols
The time period during “The Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” took place when filing for a divorce was a mist of whispers. In “The Story of an Hour” the reader …show more content…
The first symbol in “The Story of an Hour” is the open window: “There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window” (Chopin, 1174). This imagery gives Mrs. Mallard insight into how her life can be when free. Furthermore, “the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air” (Chopin, 1174). This excerpt describes a new season for a new beginning, and the rain washed away the past to start anew. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the obvious symbol is the wallpaper. The narrator says “the pattern is torturing” (Gilman, 555). The narrator is often troubled by the paper’s pattern, or lack thereof. The undefined pattern represents the cage that women are trapped in by their marriages: “At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars” (Gilman, 555). After spending much time gazing at the yellow wallpaper she notices a woman encaged behind the pattern: “By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is a pattern that keeps her so still” (Gilman, 555). Later on, the reader then learns that she is in fact the woman behind the bars. Moreover, Mrs. Mallard’s symbol represents freedom while the narrator from “The Yellow Wallpaper,” symbols