Shakespeare simply stated, “I call for pen and ink and write my mind.” Literature is written and published for many reasons. Some may use literature to portray their creative skills. Others use literature simply for therapeutic purposes. Oftentimes, authors use their writing to propagate their beliefs. Spanning the 1800s and 1900s, the women’s suffrage movement was in full force. Women felt unappreciated, set aside, and not needed. Men were viewed as the vital part of life itself, while women were seen only as a lowly help mate. Kate Chopin and Charlotte Gilman, both living in the 1800s and 1900s, used their literature as a platform to demonstrate their beliefs about women’s rights as well as women’s roles in society. Kate Chopin beautifully
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It was published in Vogue on December 6, 1894, originally entitled “The Dream of an Hour”. Kate Chopin describes the main character, Mrs. Mallard, as a woman who is “afflicted with a heart trouble” (DiYanni, 38). Mr. Mallard, the doting husband, dies in what Chopin describes as a “railroad disaster” (DiYanni, 38). Kate Chopin writes of Mrs. Mallard’s reaction, “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms” (DiYanni, 38). Although this is her first reaction, her demeanor quickly becomes peculiar. Chopin shares that Mrs. Mallard mysteriously moves to her room. She explains what Mrs. Mallard sees outside her bedroom window, “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life…In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds” DiYanni, 39). To much surprise, Chopin writes that Mrs. Mallard begins to whisper the words “Free, free, free” (DiYanni, 39). Kate Chopin unashamedly paints for her reader that the loss of the husband provided a sense of freedom for Mrs. Mallard, a deliverance from the oppression of a man. However, at the end of the story, Mr. Mallard appears. Upon seeing her alive husband, Mrs. Mallard falls over dead. Kate Chopin uses …show more content…
Charlotte Gilman was born on July 3, 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut. She was the precious gift given to Fredrick Beecher Perkins and Mary Fitch Westcott. Mary, Gilman’s mother, lost four of her babies in infancy. The doctors recommended that she stop having children due to both her mental and physical health. Sadly, Fredrick Beecher Perkins left the family. However, Charlotte was left in the hands of strong, capable women. During the following years she realized women are just as able as men. At the age of 21, a young man by the name of Charles Walter Stetson, proposed to Ms. Charlotte Gilman. She toiled with this decision for two years. She feared that within marriage she would lose her freedom and ability to work as a woman. However, she did in fact get married. Before marriage, Gilman stretched the boundaries of womanhood and was a free thinker who worked to achieve economic independence. After marriage, she simply played the role of wife and mother. This domestically bound woman, entered into a deep depression. She quickly escaped from her home, husband, and finally her child. It was at this point, she began writing. Deborah M. De Simone of Virginia Tech University, writes about Gilman’s overall purpose in writing. She explains, “Using her extraordinary life experiences as a female within a patriarchal system, Gilman
It was published in Vogue on December 6, 1894, originally entitled “The Dream of an Hour”. Kate Chopin describes the main character, Mrs. Mallard, as a woman who is “afflicted with a heart trouble” (DiYanni, 38). Mr. Mallard, the doting husband, dies in what Chopin describes as a “railroad disaster” (DiYanni, 38). Kate Chopin writes of Mrs. Mallard’s reaction, “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms” (DiYanni, 38). Although this is her first reaction, her demeanor quickly becomes peculiar. Chopin shares that Mrs. Mallard mysteriously moves to her room. She explains what Mrs. Mallard sees outside her bedroom window, “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life…In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds” DiYanni, 39). To much surprise, Chopin writes that Mrs. Mallard begins to whisper the words “Free, free, free” (DiYanni, 39). Kate Chopin unashamedly paints for her reader that the loss of the husband provided a sense of freedom for Mrs. Mallard, a deliverance from the oppression of a man. However, at the end of the story, Mr. Mallard appears. Upon seeing her alive husband, Mrs. Mallard falls over dead. Kate Chopin uses …show more content…
Charlotte Gilman was born on July 3, 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut. She was the precious gift given to Fredrick Beecher Perkins and Mary Fitch Westcott. Mary, Gilman’s mother, lost four of her babies in infancy. The doctors recommended that she stop having children due to both her mental and physical health. Sadly, Fredrick Beecher Perkins left the family. However, Charlotte was left in the hands of strong, capable women. During the following years she realized women are just as able as men. At the age of 21, a young man by the name of Charles Walter Stetson, proposed to Ms. Charlotte Gilman. She toiled with this decision for two years. She feared that within marriage she would lose her freedom and ability to work as a woman. However, she did in fact get married. Before marriage, Gilman stretched the boundaries of womanhood and was a free thinker who worked to achieve economic independence. After marriage, she simply played the role of wife and mother. This domestically bound woman, entered into a deep depression. She quickly escaped from her home, husband, and finally her child. It was at this point, she began writing. Deborah M. De Simone of Virginia Tech University, writes about Gilman’s overall purpose in writing. She explains, “Using her extraordinary life experiences as a female within a patriarchal system, Gilman