Essay Comparing The Yellow Wallpaper And Story Of An Hour

Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin were both authors in a time where women were seen as objects and not as a person. Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper and Chopin wrote The Story of an Hour, both texts were frowned upon they were written since they went into depth on what a marriage looked like at the time and how one sided they usually were. Gilman did a better job at going into the depth of the marriage and how it can affect a women, and have the possibility of making a wife go a little crazy. She shows how her husband, John, runs her life and tells her what she can and can’t do and how an illness not seen by the eye doesn’t count as a real disease. She is able to give a better picture and insight than Chopin did in her story. Gilman shares her experience and how her husband treats her. John was a physician and would “scoff openly at any talk of things that not to be felt and seen…” (766). He doesn’t see anything wrong with her and just claims that she has nervousness and

She uses a figure and the “horrid” wallpaper as analogies for women and men, respectively. The figure is trapped behind the wallpaper and struggles to get out and to be seen and the wallpaper does everything in its power to keep the figure from emerging. Just like how most men didn’t want their wives to think for themselves and if they did, they couldn’t show it. The men did everything they could to keep the women from breaking free of their bonds and telling the world what they thought. Soon enough Gilman becomes this figure and breaks free of the wallpaper claiming “And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” (778). She realized that she could be free of the ‘wallpaper’, and men, and she doesn’t want to go back. She wants to be free and be able to speak out and help other women at that