The Yellow Wallpaper And Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

In Charlotte Gilman’s short story, the Yellow Wallpaper and Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour two protagonists attempt to escape their patriarchal ideologies which are symbolized through their husband’s oppressive rule over them. Initially, the women struggle to leave this ideology, often oppressing their dissatisfaction with it out of fear of the unknown. Eventually, the women accept these feelings once they realize that they cannot keep them below the surface, this realization and acceptance creates a sense of freedom in the women. Eventually, the protagonists are able to be truly free of their husbands. But their freedom comes in the form of tragic fates. In Gilman’s story the protagonist becomes insane and in Chopin’s story the protagonist ends up dead. It is only in these terrible predicaments that they are truly free. These ironic endings function to represent the tribulations one must go through to break away from an ideology and the …show more content…
In Gilman’s story, the protagonist is made by her husband to participate in a rest cure like treatment for her anxiety. She feels that this is wrong because it only makes her feel worse and at times resents him very deeply however as soon as she feels this she instantly represses her opposing thoughts and feeling. She takes these pent up emotions and focuses them on a yellow wallpaper that becomes a symbol for her imprisonment. In Chopin’s story, the protagonist is also faced with feelings she feels afraid to accept because they may defy her husband. After hearing about the death of her husband she attempts to bottle down the joy and the freedom that she feels from knowing he will no longer be in her life. Although both protagonists recognize that they are in a state of oppression they are afraid to accept these feelings because it goes against all they have ever