The Quest For Freedom In The Yellow Wallpaper By Kate Chopin

Within Helena Turners picture The Bird Cage we can see a woman holding a bird cage in front of an open door. Here the bird is trapped within a cage, which is more of a physical trap. This can also go on to represent the fact that women within pieces of literature in the 19th century were portrayed as having feelings of being restrained within their personal and social lives. The fact that the woman that is holding onto the cage is also standing in front of an open door which is showing her desire for freedom. This picture in itself captures a lot of what women’s literature was trying to characterize about their individual lives during the 19th century. The theme of confinement and wanting to be free from the standards that society has set for them can be seen within multiple literature pieces, in a variety of different ways. Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” starts off normally enough with the narrator and her husband renting a home for a vacation, until we get the description of the house which says “it is quite alone, standing well back from the road… there are hedges and walls and gates that lock” (1471). While this does seem to be ordinary enough, this story goes deeper and we get a more physical confinement for the narrator …show more content…
In this short story, Mrs. Mallard learns of her husbands passing. Instead of going into a deep grieving process like most people would, she instead cries at once then moves on. To Mrs. Mallard the death of her husband freed her, giving her the chance to escape the confines she felt within marriage. While she acknowledges the fact that she shouldn’t think this way, she can’t help but be happy about the freedom this gives her. When her husband shows up alive she winds up dead, which shows that if she can’t be free while alive death is the only