How Far Has Feminism Come? Feminism is a broad topic, mainly focusing on gender, that has resulted in many controversial disputes and disagreements. Despite the progress of the feminist movement, gender inequality is still an unresolved issue. Patriarchy, which has been embedded into society for as long as the beginning of history, is starting to be condemned for its negative lasting effects on women’s lives. In the book Literary and Cultural Theory by Donald Hall, he discusses key principles which define feminist analysis and its subcategories. Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of An Hour,” is about a woman named Louise Mallard who was told that her husband died and she finds joy in her freedom. However, her husband turns out to be alive and when he returns home, Louise dies from devastation. In Chopin’s book The Awakening, Edna Pontellier is different from most women in society and has been rebellious for most of her life with fantasies of forbidden loves. Despite her responsibilities as a wife and mother of two boys, she continues to rebel by having …show more content…
Self-doubt often arose because women were frequently bombarded with messages of what is proper and improper as a lady; their thoughts were often dismissed if they disagreed. Women were aware of these social pressures and struggled to follow them, even subconsciously burying their thoughts from the constant oppression that has almost become intrinsic to them. In “The Yellow Wall-paper,” when the unidentified woman is starting to lose her sanity, she starts to think that she is the creeping woman trapped behind the wallpaper: “I don 't like to look out of the windows even — there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did? But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope — you don 't get me out in the road