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The yellow wallpaper and the story of an hour comparison
The yellow wallpaper charlotte perkins gilman analysis
Kate Chopin, “the story of an hour” analysis
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Kate Chopin’s “The Story of the Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” are viewed from a woman’s perspective in the nineteenth century. They show the issues on how they are confined to the house. That they are to be stay at home wives and let the husband earn the household income. These stories are both written by American women and how their marriage was brought about. Their husbands were very controlling and treated them more like children instead of their wives. In the nineteenth century their behavior was considered normal at the time. In “The Story of the Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” both women explore their issues on wanting to be free from the control of their husband’s. These women do not know how to act when their husband was not around. They had to be controlled because they do not have control over themselves. If their husbands do not have control over them, they would have been out of control. In both stories, when the husband is out of the picture they are not in their right mind. They always had someone watching over them like they were a child. When they are left alone, they talk to themselves and lose their minds. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the wife is mentally-ill and cannot be left alone. She cannot function in a daily routine. She says that her husband does not treat her like a wife, but instead he treated her like one of his patients. She is only treated that way because she acted like a patient and not like a wife. The only way to help her was to treat her like a patient so that she can get better. In “The Story of the Hour,” the wife wanted her freedom so bad. She is also not in her right mind. She has a heart problem and had to be treated delicately. She also had a controlling hus... ... middle of paper ... ...nything in the politics field because of the men. The made the household income and the women stayed at home. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of the Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” both women explore their issues on wanting to be free of the control of their husbands. They feel that they need to be free. Both women are not in their right mind and go crazy, when they have some sort of freedom from whatever has a trap on them. In both stories, when the women are left alone they talk themselves about whatever is going on around them. When their husbands are not around they seem to lose control and need to be check on often. In the nineteenth century, women with illnesses or any kind of sickness had no rights. So as soon as their husbands were not around or gone for good. They felt like they were in control, once in their entire life.
So as we look at the lives of women back in the 19th century, they have the stereotypical trend of being a house wife, staying at home, taking care of kids, the house, and aiding the husband in his work. Being in charge of the household makes women have many responsibilities to take care of, but still women are often looked down upon and men who often think a women’s say is unimportant. The two short stories are about two women who have husbands that are successful and the women who feel suffocated by their lack of ability to live their own lives or make their own decisions. The two stories present similar plots about two wives who have grown to feel imprisoned in their own marriages. In the yellow wallpaper, she is virtually imprisoned in her bedroom, and does not even have a say in the location or decor of the room.
On the surface, the protagonists of Silko's "Yellow Woman" and Chopin's "Story of an Hour" seem to have little in common. Yet upon closer inspection, both stories relate tales of women who are repressed by the social tenets that define their roles as wives.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, is a first-person narrative written in the style of a journal. It takes place during the nineteenth century and depicts the narrator’s time in a temporary home her husband has taken her to in hopes of providing a place to rest and recover from her “nervous depression”. Throughout the story, the narrator’s “nervous condition” worsens. She begins to obsess over the yellow wallpaper in her room to the point of insanity. She imagines a woman trapped within the patterns of the paper and spends her time watching and trying to free her. Gilman uses various literary elements throughout this piece, such as irony and symbolism, to portray it’s central themes of restrictive social norms
Throughout history, women have had to continuously fight for their rights and equality in society. Women have fought to separate themselves from their controlling husbands, fought to become independently accepted and have fought to create their own destiny. Within their short stories, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin address this search for freedom and independence. Chopin’s publication of “The Story of an Hour” in 1894 was not far behind Gilman’s publication of “The Yellow Wallpaper” in 1892. During this time period, women were starting to fight for more social rights and social equality. Both stories analyze the social standards of this time and the oppression of women by men.
Kate Chopin wrote “The Story of an Hour” in 1894; it describes a young married women named Louise confronting years of suppression that vanish with her husband’s death leaving her with unimaginable freedom. A few years later in 1899, Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” which portrayed a married woman’s struggle against insanity. The similarities between the two would seem unapparent, other than the fact that both women in the stories are married. When submersing oneself deeper into the stories, one can see the analogy between their wedded husbands, and the controlling grips they have on their wives. However, if a person truly descends within the two texts, accord and disparity layers itself with symbolism; the two stories show unique settings and elaborate imagery that pose multiple similarities as well as differences.
Narrator and Point of View in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Story of an Hour
In both The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin, the authors develop detailed yet ambiguous stories riddled with common themes, clever symbols, fitting settings and dramatic conflict, creating classics we can not only glean from, but also enjoy as an entertaining read. When analyzed, the two short stories seem to mirror each other’s purpose through a mutual theme communicated in each story. This, however, does not stop at just that. It actually carries over to not only the general setting, but also the conflicts at hand and symbols used by the pair of writers, creating a great example of two literary works that can be compared successfully
Around the time of the 1800s, there were extreme differences between men and women when compared to societal standards. They were held to different standards that we do not see in today’s societal norms. Men were considered the breadwinners while women stayed home to cook and clean. Anything other than this was looked at straying away from the status quo, the norm and or ideals of society as a whole. Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour,” illustrates the influence of gender inequality between men and women in 1894 through the marriage of the characters, Mr. and Mrs. Mallard.
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” are both centralized on the feministic views of women coming out to the world. Aside from the many differences within the two short stories, there is also similarities contained in Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” such as the same concept of the “rest treatment” was prescribed as medicine to help deal with their sickness, society’s views on the main character’s illness, and both stories parallel in the main character finding freedom in the locked rooms that they contain themselves in.
Restraints are set by parents on their children to aid with the developmental process and help with the maturity level. Restrictions and the ability to control exist in our society and our lives. We encounter restraints daily: job, doors, people, and the most frequently used and arduous become intangible. In the following stories tangible and intangible scenarios are presented. Autonomy, desires, and talents spurned by the husbands in John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums and Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The authors share views regarding a similar theme of male domination and imprisonment. “The Yellow Wallpaper” involves the treatment of a depressed woman who is driven insane in a male imposed detention in her own room. On the other hand, Elisa Allen in the “The Chrysanthemums” struggles internally to find her place in a fully male dominated society with definite gender roles. The mirror-like situations bring upon a different reaction for both the women in different ways. The importance of symbolism, control from their husbands, and the lack of a healthy marriage will be discussed in this paper in two stories.
In literature, women are often depicted as weak, compliant, and inferior to men. The nineteenth century was a time period where women were repressed and controlled by their husband and other male figures. Charlotte Gilman, wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper," showing her disagreement with the limitations that society placed on women during the nineteenth century. According to Edsitement, the story is based on an event in Gilman’s life. Gilman suffered from depression, and she went to see a physician name, Silas Weir Mitchell. He prescribed the rest cure, which then drove her into insanity. She then rebelled against his advice, and moved to California to continue writing. She then wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which is inflated version of her experience. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the main character is going through depression and she is being oppressed by her husband and she represents the oppression that many women in society face. Gilman illustrates this effect through the use of symbols such as the yellow wallpaper, the nursery room, and the barred windows.
Women have traditionally been known as the less dominant sex. Through history women have fought for equal rights and freedom. They have been stereotyped as being housewives, and bearers and nurturers of the children. Only recently with the push of the Equal Rights Amendment have women had a strong hold on the workplace alongside men. Many interesting characters in literature are conceived from the tension women have faced with men. This tension is derived from men; society, in general; and within a woman herself. Two interesting short stories, “The Yellow Wall-paper and “The Story of an Hour, “ focus on a woman’s plight near the turn of the 19th century. This era is especially interesting because it is a time in modern society when women were still treated as second class citizens. The two main characters in these stories show similarities, but they are also remarkably different in the ways they deal with their problems and life in general. These two characters will be examined to note the commonalities and differences. Although the two characters are similar in some ways, it will be shown that the woman in the “The Story of an Hour” is a stronger character based on the two important criteria of rationality and freedom.
In the late 1800s, women were considered to be brought up under male superiority. Women were not required to have a decent education or seek a professional career, their expectation was strictly revolved in the interest of their home and family. In addition after marriage, women had embodied a purpose as a wife to have little to any rights: women could not keep their own wages, own property titled under their name, or sign a legal document. As of this, women developed an alternative method of expression which was writing. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, and “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton are core examples of this attempt, and assisted the audience to interpret the voice and position of women by exhibiting their perspective of women by pointing out the prolonging cruel and unjust treatment men applied over them and the social complexity that pressure women to make misleading choices.
The story begins when she and her husband have just moved into a colonial mansion to relieve her chronic nervousness. An ailment her husband has conveniently diagnosed. The husband is a physician and in the beginning of her writing she has nothing but good things to say about him, which is very obedient of her. She speaks of her husband as if he is a father figure and nothing like an equal, which is so important in a relationship. She writes, "He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction." It is in this manner that she first delicately speaks of his total control over her without meaning to and how she has no choices whatsoever. This control is perhaps so imbedded in our main character that it is even seen in her secret writing; "John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition...so I will let it alone and talk about the house." Her husband suggests enormous amounts of bed rest and no human interaction at all. He chooses a "prison-like" room for them to reside in that he anticipates will calm our main character even more into a comma like life but instead awakens her and slowly but surely opens her eyes to a woman tearing the walls down to freedom.
Marriage sometimes refers to the happiest time for each couple. However, marriage can lead women to having depression. In the story “The yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, published in 1892, the author is giving out a point of view that women often get depression from their spouses. Gilman is a famous feminist, who believes that women should receive the same privileges as men. In the story, the woman was being controlled by her husband John. John was a doctor and he was educated enough to tell his wife what she needed to do for her sickness; however, she could not argue with her husband because she was not smart enough to reject his decision. Since the sickness has made this woman become a weak person, she also couldn’t fight against her husband in physical ways. The time period of this story was nearly 1800, so the woman in the story must have the idea of male domination. This traditional idea has made this woman afraid to stand up for herself. At the end of the story, the depression has made this woman become mentally insane and respect is one major theme of this story.