Edna

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Recommended: Literary criticism the yellow wallpaper

The concept how woman are treated in modern times have changed drastically compared to woman who lived in the conservative period. That period was the time where the perception of individuals in general dealt with countless restraints. The women were the ones who were affected the most because these values had strongly influenced them. Woman behaved in a way how their husband’s wanted because they were living their lives by the controlled ways of the man. The story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the story of “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin are two stories that show accurately the way how women were treated at that time; exactly Edna and the other women. I want to discuss that the main characters of these two stories; Edna and the other women’s liberty were interdicted by their husbands. Finally, the way how both stories end; Edna’s suicide, and the other women’s insanity; demonstrates their inability to escape from the unhappy reality. None of them found the real strength, to outdo the restriction and effects of society, to attain their independence and freedom that they continuously wanted to achieve.
The way that these women are portrayed in these two stories is kind of similar; they were in a continuous quest for freedom while wishing to create a new world for them. The main character in “The Awakening” is a woman who is obedient in each manner to her man. She was trustworthy toward him, and she believed him to that point, that she trusted what he said that she was not sick instead of her own feelings that she was. Obeying only to him, she permitted her kid to be far from her and she let herself to be imprisoned in an ancient house that her husband has found for them. Any demand...

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...ird in the story is a representation that Edna is described as a woman that is stuck in societal customs. Edna, comparable to bird, always says what she desires, however, she never gets her freedom that she wishes for. A different illustration of coop description is her home that she lives; she assumes that by living there she will get rid of the effect of her partner. The narrator tries to convince us that the house that she moves, offers Edna some kind of individuality that she is in search for. Still, when comparing the concept of Edna’s house with the appearance of a bird, demonstrates that she is not yet getting her freedom. The places where birds are kept in cage are filled of coops that birds are not able to fly from there. Since a bird that flies is an emblem of liberty, it is obvious that a bird’s cage is an emblem of the constraint of Edna’s independence.

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