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Comparing Marriage In Story Of An Hour And The Yellow Wallpaper

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In the late eighteen hundreds, women’s roles revolved around marriage and child bearing. Divorce was not an option and was not looked well upon. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, both authors reveal the repressive nature of marriage. Chopin portrays how marriage was more like a role of servitude for women rather than a loving partnership. She reveals to us how marriage in the late eighteen hundreds was rather loveless. Correspondingly, Gilman reveals how being in a marriage may drive one mad by how limiting it was. Both stories reveal how marriage was rather confining, included expectations, and that society suppressed the dreams and aspirations of women. Marriage in that time period was confining. Women were not free to do as they wished. They were not allowed to pursue their dreams. Both “The Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” display how a woman’s aspirations were denied. The protagonists in both stories, journey to find freedom. In “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard felt as if she was trapped. When Mrs. Mallard is told of her husband’s death, she is grief-stricken, “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment” …show more content…

Women's lack of freedom during the 1800s made men the superior sex. Kate Chopin’s short story efficiently depicts that women are commonly mistreated and unhappy in marriages. Whereas Gilman expresses even though she was suffering mentally she was still told to "live as domestic a life as far as possible," to "have but two hours' intellectual life a day," and "never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again" as long as I lived” ( Gilman 1913). Marriage can symbolize slavery to women due to expected roles created by society and man’s domination. Women have been restricted by marriage in the past and in some places around the world until this very day and

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Often times women were unable to break of their repressive bonds in their marriages. Throughout the 19th century, many women were left at home all day to oversee domestic duties. They had such great influence at home which gave men the need to constantly put them in their place, which was beneath theirs. It was the women’s job to please their husbands who dictated every aspect of their life. In all four texts, Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, Emily Dickinson’s, “She Rose to His Requirement”, Susan Glaspell’s, Trifles and Zora Neale Hurston’s

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A Husband’s Control: Women Must Defer to Her Husband in All Matters of Marriage and Obedience As the narrator introduces her story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the reader goes back in where a women is considered fragile in her mind and naïve to the world around them. The narrative depicts a woman’s strife while personally suffering “nervous depression” (376) and how such a malady happened to be treated by her attending physician, whom is also her husband by the name of John. In 1899, polite society dictated and observed propriety at all times therefore, wives and unmarried ladies were expected to defer to their husband or the oldest living male family member within the residence.

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“The Yellow Wall-paper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s and “A Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner are both short stories in which both female characters share an unstable psychological condition. In each story, the female character loves their husbands but is oppressed by them in their role of being a stereotypical woman. In the early eighteen and nineteen hundreds, females were expected to become dependent on men for their livelihood, which at the times lead to depression and hysteria of being a submissive female. The male characters were seen as being inferior between the women.

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In, “The Story of an Hour, “Mrs. Mallard is over come with joy at the thought of living the rest of her days for herself and herself alone” (Chopin, p15). Knowing that each day from that point on would be spend by herself, and with no one else unless she allowed that person in. She seems to be excited to start this new life as an individual being, with no one other than herself in complete control of her life. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” longs for that same sort of freedom. Throughout the story, she stares at this horrific looking yellow wallpaper in the room she feels imprisoned in.

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Going back in time to the 1890s, the way society acted was way different than it is now. The two stories, “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” by Charlotte Stetson, were both written in that period and show the differences in the way people lived. The point of view in “The Story of an Hour” was written in the third person while “The Yellow Wall Paper” was written in the first person. Even though The Story of an Hour isn’t narrated by Mrs. Mallard, it still mainly follows the journey of her life and not telling the readers every detail, helped heighten that shock factor at the end of the story when her husband came through the door alive. Yellow Wall-Paper may be in first person, but it is similar to Mrs. Mallard's

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