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Comparing Women In The Yellow Wallpaper And The Story Of An Hour

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Oppression in Marriage In the 19th century, women were traditionally known as having less importance in marriage, while it was the norm for the male husbands to be in control. The women were expected to watch over the home and were thought to be the person who should take care of the children in a family. Throughout history, many remarkable characters in literature have been created from the tension women have had to face with men and society in general. Two noteworthy short stories, âThe Yellow Wallpaper and âThe Story of an Hour, â take place in the 19th century, and focus on that tension. This specific era is very significant because it is a time when women were truly treated as second-class citizens. Both of the short stories criticize the male-dominated society and explore its oppression towards women. Oppression against women is key in the success of attaining freedom in both …show more content…

While doing his best to make sure the narrator represses her imagination, John ultimately creates the very conditions he wants to prevent. The narrator starts to become insane, thinking that the wallpaper is looking at her and that there is a woman trapped behind the bars of the paper. The narrator says, âI really have discovered something at lastâ¦The front pattern does moveâand no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!â (Widger 1). When the narrator saw the woman captured by the wallpaper, she begins to want her freedom even more. She starts to realize that she too, is a prisoner. The more the thinks about it, the more insane she becomes. During the day, the narrator sees the woman walking around, which shows her that she can be free during the day at times, but is certainly trapped in the wallpaper at night. The author wrote, âI think that woman gets out in the day time! Iâve seen her! ...read

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As the narrator becomes more fascinated with the wallpaper she moves progressively away from her normal day-to-day routines and lifestyle. When the narrator finally recognizes herself as the woman trapped in the wallpaper she screams at her husband "I 've got out at last," (Gilman 656) "you can 't put me back" (Gilman 656). She realizes woman are forced to hide behind the internal patterns of their lives and they need that she needs to be

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599 Words | 3 Pages

It is no secret that men and women are treated differently still to this day. However, during the Victorian Era women were treated with very little respect. They were expected to be homemakers, and not voice their opinions. "The Ruined Maid" by Thomas Hardy and "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Gilman were both written during this time. Even though these stories were written in the same time period, the protagonist thoughts about the Victorian Era were different.

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1002 Words | 5 Pages

The woman in the wallpaper is trapped just like she is. The narrator creates a figure that she could relate to and then spends all her time focused on the figure and trying to figure out how to help the woman in the wallpaper escape her cell. As the story continues and she remains isolated, it is obvious Jane views herself as the woman inside the wallpaper. As a result of being trapped in her room, she begins to lose her sanity. She believes she is trapped in the wallpaper and must escape its holds.

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624 Words | 3 Pages

“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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661 Words | 3 Pages

The woman in the wallpaper reflects the narrator because she is trapped, only the narrator can see her, John wishes them to stay as they are, and she wants to be free. The narrator and the woman are trapped by the yellow wallpaper. The narrator refers that in the night the wallpaper is just barred trapping the woman inside of it. “At night in any kind of light, in the twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars!

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227 Words | 1 Pages

In the 1800s and early 1900s women were expected to get married and serve their husbands. A woman’s main role, according to society, was to be a mother and a housewife, while being fully submissive to her husband, because he was the head of their household. Women did not have equal rights as men, and as a result of this, they felt repressed of their freedom. In the short stories, “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston, and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, you can see how women’s repression affects Delia and the wife in Chapin’s story. Although the women of both stories are facing the same problem of repression, they were not both treated the same way by their husbands.

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1048 Words | 5 Pages

Men treated women as second class citizens in society during the early 1900s. Even with the oppression of women in society in this time, many women have struggled to expand their roles, and acquire additional rights. From my perspective, the authors of these stories are indirectly trying to tell us how much oppression the women have been through during the time. “The Thing on the Doorstep” is a short story about a woman, Asenath, who is not in control of herself because her father, Ephraim, possesses her body after he is deceased. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story about a woman who suffers from mental illness.

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1343 Words | 6 Pages

At this point in the story, the narrator has become completely consumed by the wallpaper, spending all day and night thinking about it. Life has become more interesting by reason of her new fixation. Soon, the narrator begins to observe a creeping woman who appears to be imprisoned behind the wallpaper and decides that she will free her. Just as she had torn off the last piece of wallpaper the two women become one and the narrator admits; “I don’t like to look out of the window even – there are countless of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of the wall-paper as I did” (Gilman, 444)?

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1113 Words | 5 Pages

Secondly, throughout the story, the narrator describes seeing an evolving woman trapped inside of the wall. Although readers can assume that this woman is merely a product of the narrator’s mind, the woman can also be seen as a symbol of the narrator and her feelings of being trapped. Eventually, the woman in the wall aids the narrator in her escape. In conclusion, many elements of the narrator’s increasing madness throughout The Yellow Wallpaper contributed to her freedom from the confines of the room, the confines of society, and the confines of her

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675 Words | 3 Pages

Over the course of time, being in isolation, the narrator becomes fond of the wallpaper studying and attempting to figure out the pattern. As her obsession grows over the wallpaper the pattern becomes clear to her. She begins to see a woman bending down creeping behind the patterns that act like bars on a cage. The wallpaper dominates her imagination and she begins to sleep less. she sees the woman behind the pattern shaking the bars in the day and creeping during the night.

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1155 Words | 5 Pages

Nonetheless, the narrator continues to pen her ideas about the wallpaper as it transpired from being perplexing to gaining clarity each day. Amidst arriving at a full conclusion of what the wallpaper depicts, the narrator says she sees “a woman stooping down and creeping about behind the pattern” (Perkins Gilman, 50). As the days passed,

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501 Words | 3 Pages

John constantly tries to "fix" the narrator by giving her "phosphates or phosphites - whichever it is, and tonics, and journey's, and air, and exercise" as well as forbidding her to work until she is well again. The narrator feels depressed and alone, especially since her child has been taken away from her and everybody is too focused on "fixing" her to see the problems she is dealing with. This causes her to form an attachment to the yellow wallpaper plastered around her room as her mental state deteriorates. As her state of mind worsens, she begins to think that she is seeing a woman trapped in the wallpaper. The narrator believes that the wallpaper pattern changes because the trapped woman shakes the walls and creeps around the room over and over, when in reality, it is the narrator who is continuously crawling around the room, scraping the wallpaper from the walls.

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1011 Words | 5 Pages

Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" takes place in the 19th century, when women were expected to be stereotypical housewives and had few rights or opportunities. The character of the story is a married woman with underlying heart problems. Mrs. Mallard is the wife. She was informed that her husband had passed away, but once her grief subsided, she experienced freedom and joy. This is problematic because it represents the idea that women are oppressed by their marriages.

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484 Words | 2 Pages

(99). The woman on the floor trying to take the wallpaper down would not let her husband in as he tried to knock the door down, but she does not realize she is doing it to herself. For example, Catherine Golden states in her article that, “The narrator seems detached from the bits of wallpaper on the floor next to her and John wallpaper fragments that could be read as a literal representation of the source of her insanity. The narrator’s hallucinations and action of tearing down the wallpaper to free the woman trapped behind the wallpaper pattern condemn her to madness” (60).

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658 Words | 3 Pages

The narrator convinces herself that there is a woman trapped in the paper who is trying to get out (Perkins 385). She also claims that the woman behind the paper shakes it in hopes to escape (Perkins 388). The narrator becomes obsessed with the ghostly woman, who is in the paper, and convinces herself that she too was once trapped in the paper and escaped. The narrator is determined to catch the creeping woman. She believes that there are others who are trapped in the wallpaper by night and are free during the day.

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