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Essay Comparing The Yellow Wallpaper And The Odyssey

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After reading The Yellow Wallpaper and The Odyssey it is easy to notice that the two stories are very similar. The main characters Jane from The Yellow Wallpaper and Odysseus from The Odyssey both show a form of bravery that makes the stories similar. In the stories The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and The Odyssey by Homer the characters Jane and Odysseus went through the hero quest journey by receiving their call to cross the thresh hold into the special world, which made them more brave.
A hero’s quest starts with a call for adventure when he or she is asked to leave his or her normal life. Both characters face this stage. At the beginning of his quest, Odysseus lives in Ithaca with his family, and he leaves his wife and son to join the Trojan War. Jane’s adventure starts when her husband takes her on a summer vacation in the country to cure her mental illness.
. Another stage shared by both stories is the cross of the first threshold, which happens when a hero enters the realm of unknown. For Odysseus, this happens when the gods get angry with the Greeks after the end of the Trojan War. They send a great storm, making Odysseus’s ships to lose their course. As a result, he cannot return home immediately and has to pass a series of tests. For Jane, the cross of the first threshold happens when she sees the yellow …show more content…

Once again, the stories of Jane and Odysseus share this stage, although Jane’s adventures are much less spectacular than Odysseus’s. The hero of The Odyssey has to defeat the cyclops Polyphemus, Sirens, and other powerful enemies. The hero does it by relying on his cunning, resourcefulness, and bravery. Although Jane does not have to defeat monsters, her test also requires boldness. She hides her fascination with the wallpaper because she knows John would disapprove it. To distract him, she pretends to overcome her

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