The Story Of An Hour By Kate Chopin And The Yellow Wallpaper

In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, the main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard, is a woman with a heart problem that gets horrifying news that her husband has passed away in a train crash. When she starts thinking about her freedom, she gets excited; she is happy to start her new, free life. However, a few hours later her husband walks in the door and she finds out it was all a mistake. When she realizes her freedom is gone her heart stop and she then dies. In “Desiree’s Baby” Desiree is an orphaned woman who married her loving husband, Armand, and they are very much in love. In Kate Chopin’s short story is says, “"He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana?" (24-26). When they finally have a baby, they notice that the child is showing marks that he is a mix of two races. The husband blames the wife because of her unknown past and sends her and the baby away for good. Later, as he is cleaning out their old stuff, he finds a letter that says, in fact, he is the one of mixed race and not her. The husband then realizes he gave up everything he cared about over a silly mistake. Both of these stories show the women struggling in their marriages. It is typical for Kate Chopin to show the dominance in the male characters, especially in the marriages as it was in the “Old South”, when women were meant to serve their husbands. Rena Korb says, “In certain ways, "Desiree 's Baby" is

Women in history stood best known for a less ascendant sex in the mid-nineteen centuries. Since times have gone by women had fought for their equal rights and freedom. There had been many stereotypes, where the women were considered as a slave to the men’s because the women’s position was to be the homemakers and a mother to their children, while the men’s are out socializing with others. If they were not happy with the marriage, they cannot just walk out or complain because a women role is to endure all these pains without a word coming out of their mouths. Two out of the ordinary short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Story of An Hour,” mostly focused on a women’s dilemma that they faced near the 19th century. The two main characters in the short stories show some resemblances in some ways, but both characters portrayed them in different ways of how they dealt their sorrows in their marriages.

Through history women have always been less dominant than men. Men have been known to be the bread winner while women were at home attending to house chores. In the era of the 19th century women were battling with equal right. In the following short stories “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin they target just how women were viewed. These two stories show similarities, but also contrast in some ways such as the fact that both women were controlled by domineering husbands, both express their freedom, both are from a feminist point of view, however they have different life changes.

“The Cult of Domesticity” was alive and well in the United States during the nineteenth century. Men were the leaders and breadwinners, while women were the homemakers and domesticates. Since women were considered physically weaker yet morally superior to men, they were best suited to the domestic sphere (Hughes). It is against this backdrop that Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin write “The Yellow Wall-Paper” (1892) and “The Story of an Hour” (1894), respectively. Each story is an allegory that spotlights female oppression by patriarchal authority and the struggles of women to attain liberty from this oppression. Although these short stories share the same themes, they are told from different points of view. “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is a narrative told from the first person point of view. “The Story of an Hour” is a short story told from a third person point of view. Both authors use space to depict the plight of a repressed wife’s conflict between self desires for freedom and society’s matronly expectations. Gilman and Chopin also use strong symbolism and irony to emphasize the social factors of the period that prevent the satisfaction of such desires for liberty by women.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin have similarities that include character traits, controversial feminist backgrounds, and time period; and their differences, including setting, and the final fates for the women. Both written in the 19th century, the stories confront patriarchal ideas of women and their relationships with their husbands. But their differences main contrast is the country setting for “The Yellow Wallpaper” and the city setting for “The Story of an Hour” and a slightly different end for the women. Both stories’ inherently feminist backgrounds allow the stories to challenge society at the time.

Though gender unfairness is a popular topic of modern discussion, it has long been explored, perhaps most notable in two well-known stories by female authors. Both “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and published in 1899, and “The Story of an Hour,” written by Kate Chopin and published in 1894, reflect the status and social position of women at the turn of the twentieth century. Both women in these stories have caring husbands, upper-class social status, and seemingly privileged lives compared to others. But both women have started to lose their dreams and goals within their restraint of their marriage. Ultimately, both women see freedom through the windows of their confinement, and it is this view that lures them

During these times, women were expected to stay at home and provide, but a woman’s whereabouts weren’t the only aspect of them subject to societal norms. Although women were expected to care for their families, societal norms in the late 1800s and early 1900s excluded protecting women and their mental well-being, which is prevalent in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Story of an Hour. The Yellow Wallpaper exemplifies this norm by showing how the narrator’s mental health issues were dismissed by

In the late 19th century, women were not treated equally by men and they played a different role in society than what they do today. There are many stories that can help provide a glimpse of what life was like in the 1800s using a literary device known as realism. Realism is correctly portrayed in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Story of an Hour”, written by Kate Chopin, in which both depict real life situations and scenarios of what it was like to be a woman in the late 19th century. In both of these short stories, the women are depicted as being tied down by their husbands, with their thoughts and ideas being considered absurd by the men in their lives. Also, the authors use these stories to describe scenarios that they once found themselves in. The illnesses that the women faced during this time period were real but often downplayed by men who did not believe what the women said. While depression may have been diagnosed due to the birth of a baby, it could have also been due to their husbands. Both “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Story of an Hour” demonstrate realism through social themes that incorporate the idea of feminism, as well as the way in which women were treated as less than equal by men.

Throughout history, women have struggled to be seen as equals and have had to fight for their freedom from the roles society placed upon them. Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman both use their literary works to show the challenges women went through, and how they battled for the freedoms they desperately wanted. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story about a woman that goes to a summer home to rest and get well under the supervision of her husband who is also a physician. Her husband decided it would be best if she sat in a room alone and did nothing. In the end, she becomes insane and finally finds her freedom. “The Story of An Hour” is about, Mrs. Mallard, a woman who has just found out her husband has died. Mrs. Mallard

Women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries seemed to be isolated. In the three stories: “The Story of an Hour,” “Hills like White Elephants,” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” there seems to be a theme of a need for freedom. The women in these stories experienced unfavorable things such as disappointment, grief and detachment from reality, peer pressure, and loneliness. No woman or man deserves to go through these things, but it is evident that it remained a sociological norm back in these times.

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, is a story about a wife and a husband, decided to rent a mansion for the summer. John, which is the husband, is assured that his wife is suffering from neurasthenia and believes that she needs to rest. He puts her in a bedroom, which has yellow wallpaper; she is stuck there until she becomes mad.

Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper are two of the first works of feminist literature in the 19th century. They were written at a time when a woman’s lot was characterized by gender inequality, with few legal, social, or political rights. In the 19th century women were constant victims of society’s ideals, defined as physically and intellectually weaker than men. Fathers and husbands implemented certain rules and standards, whilst also expecting women to remain subservient. Occupational choices were also extremely limited, with the majority of jobs being menial and low paid, because women were generally expected to remain at home, care for their children and run the household. During this age women also had very little political standing and were not allowed to vote (Hughes). Literature increasingly played a significant role in both reinforcing and challenging the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women. In these two stories, we gain a snap shot of masculine and feminine characteristics portrayed by the characters and their actions. These actions either endorse or destabilize the socially accepted stereotypes of the time.

The late nineteenth century was considered part of the first wave of feminism, where women started fighting for basic rights such as suffrage and equality under the law. Feminist authors in this time wrote to show that freedom of women was possible and how men were an obstacle to their endeavors. Two stories, “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, have the common feature of controlling structure by altering access to information through point of view, illustrating the deep emotion women experience when they are free from man’s constraint. The women in these stories each have differing experiences, but the control of structure portrays the meaning that women have complex emotions like men

What were the consequences for being a woman back in the 1800’s? Not to mention, for centuries women have always been placed under control of men, whereas they were more known to be housewives. In addition, women were only allowed to do domestic work, throughout history, women have fought for the equal right. Similarly, “The Storm” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” that indicates perfect examples of domestic. However, in the two short stories “Story of an Hour” Louise Mallard is the protagonist of Kate Chopin 's 1984 short story and “The Yellow Wallpaper” Jennie is the protagonist, focus on women’s plight near the 19th century. The era around the time is a modern society when women were still treated as second-class citizens. For instance, the two women with the stories, share similarities, but different considering how they dealt with the problems in their lives. In addition to this around this time women were simple with men that they did not happen with, but only stood in their marriages for the kids and it was not common to be alone without having a husband to be in charged of the house.Men were allowed to own property including the woman and all of her inheritance, they could get an education (like most women couldn 't, and they could have a lot of jobs that women couldn 't.

The shift in women's roles was one of the most significant changes to American culture in the late nineteenth century. For most American women, the home was no longer a place that could be considered as sacred. They were not being appreciated for maintaining their roles anymore. Many women still fulfilled their "responsibilities", but a large number of women responded that it is defining and limiting their roles in the society. “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is presenting the reader with a woman who is clearly overjoyed that her husband has died. Louise's emotions hesitate between numbness and joy at her newly discovered freedom.