Women´s Role in Kate Chopins Literature: The Yellow Paper and The Awakening

The average size of an American fashion model? Four. The average size of an American woman? Fourteen. Throughout history, more and more American women have claimed to be unsatisfied with their physical appearances. This is due to the constant presence of thin, perfectly proportioned models in media. The image of women in media creates a standard of beauty that cannot even be reached by the models themselves. Based on the image of them portrayed in media, American women have been expected to try to reach unattainable roles.

Though the expectations set for women have changed over time, women have always been expected to fulfill whatever role society created for them. This idea was even expressed in novels written in the distant past. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Kate Chopin, the main character was a female who was told that she had a mental disability that was caused by her need to and love of writing. Even the other women in the story, including her step-sister Jennie, agreed with the comments that the men made about her “illness”. Unlike the main character, “Jennie [was] a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper and [hoped] for no better profession.” (Chopin 2). At that time, it was thought that women simply didn’t get mental disorders for the same reasons that men did. When a woman didn’t fill the role that society created for her, it was said that she was mentally ill. At this time, all women were supposed to be like Jennie, housekeepers and caretakers who were supposed to be happy with their positions.

The novel The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, perfectly explains the different roles there were for women in society. In The Awakening, there are three types of women: mother-wives, single women and Edna. ...

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...“enhance” their bodies. Plastic surgery is becoming so common that it has somewhat become a coming-of-age event. A friend of mine’s sister even received a nose-job for her eighteenth birthday. With women being willing to undergo dangerous procedures such as plastic surgery, just to receive their wanted looks of perfection, one may wonder what painful things they'll be willing to suffer through in the future.

As the image of the ideal woman changes over time, so the the techniques that the average women is willing to endure those looks of perfection. The age in which women begin to try to achieve the look of an ideal woman has become younger and younger throughout the countries’ history. With so many pressures on women to remain beautiful, the unattainable roles set by society for women have become physically and mentally straining on women in the United States.