Patriarchy plays a great importance in society and for many years gender roles have been enforced in every family and culture. Society has constructed an ideal role for both males and females. These roles are what people have grown up to live by and not following these standards can lead to humiliation and violence. As gender roles continue to be established both socially and culturally, males grow to believe they have more power over women and it is viewed as a way to keep a family well structured and keep the traditions that people are taught growing up. In “Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are two short stories in which the authors convey the characteristics of both men and women and …show more content…
the effects of patriarchy in a women emotionally, and mentally sometimes even physically when certain norms aren't being followed. These ideas are not only unhealthy but it is also a reflection upon the women who live in this lifestyle. Despite the effects society will continue to set these norms and families will continue to follow them in their families and to pass them down to their children, making it an unstoppable cycle. The results of that is affecting women in various ways. Society has set standards for both men and women. Men are the strong, healthy and the ones who are in charge of the family and being the breadwinner. Meanwhile, women are set to be weak, useless and have no say in the family. In Kate Chopin’s “Story of An Hours” the author has portrayed the women as weak. Mrs. Mallards is a married woman whose husband has recently got in an accident that led to his death. Since she has a weak heart therefor the news should be said to her carefully. Just as most women in traditional households Mrs. Mallards felt as if she had no freedom. Kate states, “There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature” characterizing Mr. Mallard as demanding and not allowing her to have the independency she wanted to have. This shows that she is a weak woman due to her disease in which at any given moment she could die. Society has portrayed women in such way that men feel powerful and better than women which can sometimes lead to horrible outcomes. Many women who are apart of patriarchy can sometimes fantasy about being free.
After Mrs. Mallard’s husband's death she was confused on how to feel and despite the grief she feels so much joy that she is finally free. Mrs. Mallards states, “”Free! Body and soul free””(2) showing how despite his death she is full of joy and happy that she can finally be a free woman without him. Despite knowing that she would spend the oncoming years all alone that didn't matter to her, in fact that brought her such joy(2). The thought that she would finally have no man around that would be there everyday of her life meant so much to her. Even though “she had loved him”(2) she looked forward to everything that his death would bring. However, that didn't last very long as she passed away due to her weak heart not being able to sustain so much emotion. Chopin here showed how a woman's happiness can not last at all without a man by their side. To think that women can be so joyful over such tragedy shows the effects that this bring to women whom are living in this lifestyle. It is crucial to think that someone can have such joy over someone else's death, but many women rather lose their husbands and spend the rest of their life alone instead of having a man by their side who controls their …show more content…
life. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman also characterizes women as weak and useless. Most women tend not to express themselves because of the humiliation that comes with it. As well as the dangers that may come if a women decides to stand up to the male figure in the family. Jane, is a woman who suffers from post-partum. However, her husband and brother both highly standing physicians don't believe her(2). Gilman here shows the power that men have over women. Since both men have some sort authority because they are physicians no one believes Jane, taking away her rights. Since her husband can't seem to hear her she uses writing to express herself but even then she is still not entirely free. Jane states, “ There comes John, and I must put this away, - he hates to have me write a word”(3). Showing how he is controlling by prohibiting her from writing. Jane never had the courage to stand up to her husband or disobey him. Meaning that women may find themselves hiding something simply because their husbands won't let them do a certain thing. Men have been taught growing up this way which leads them to feel the need to control everything a women does and somehow they feel as if they know what is best for them. As he tells her, “...Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?”(6). He believes that Jane should trust him in everything that he orders her to do. Sometimes men can feel with higher power because of the jobs, or lifestyle that they live and immediately want respect from everyone. Not realizing that instead of helping their loved ones they are affecting them in every way. From hurting their emotions and they way they express themselves and can even live the rest of their lives living in fear. When they shouldn’t be because if they decided to spend the rest of lives with a specific man was to be protected and loved not mistreated and abused. Besides a women being affected emotionally they can also be affected mentally.
Driving a women to do outrageous things and even losing her mind. For example, John believed that the treatment that would cure Jane’s state of mind would be isolating her in a very small room away from her child, her friends and family that including her husband. This room had barred windows, a nailed down bed and one window and a wallpaper. The only view she had was what her eye can see from the one window in her room. Fantasizing about the garden that she got a view from and everything near her. After spending time in that room all alone with no communication whatsoever Jane’s main focus became the wallpaper. It was yellow wallpaper, with a confusing pattern and had an unexplainable smell to it. In the moonlight Jane started observing a woman that appeared on the paper. Eventually this wallpaper led her to lose her mind along with her husband's actions. Jane said, “In spite of you and Jane? And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!”(10). Jane spent so much time analyzing that wallpaper that she ended up believing that she was the women that was “trapped” in the wallpaper, she decided to take action a freed the women by tearing up the wallpaper so that the women can escape. However, she was no longer “Jane” she was now the women who had been freed. Although, John believe that locking her in a room would be the solution to Jane it ended up being the cause of her delusion.
The feeling of being trapped with no exit can drive one to go insane and become apart of an object in this case the wallpaper and just like that one can lose their mind.
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’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.
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 of children. Only 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 comes 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 fix near the turn of the 19th century. This era is especially interesting
Traditionally, men have held the power in society. Women have been treated as a second class of citizens with neither the legal rights nor the respect of their male counterparts. Culture has contributed to these gender roles by conditioning women to accept their subordinate status while encouraging young men to lead and control. Feminist criticism contends that literature either supports society’s patriarchal structure or provides social criticism in order to change this hierarchy. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts one women’s struggle against the traditional female role into which society attempts to force her and the societal reaction to this act.
Her tense mind is then further pushed towards insanity by her husband, John. As one of the few characters in the story, John plays a pivotal role in the regression of the narrator’s mind. Again, the narrator uses the wallpaper to convey her emotions. Just as the shapes in the wallpaper become clearer to the narrator, in her mind, she is having the epiphany that John is in control of her.
Gender roles seem to be as old as time and have undergone constant, but sometime subtle, revisions throughout generations. Gender roles can be defined as the expectations for the behaviors, duties and attitudes of male and female members of a society, by that society. The story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is a great example of this. There are clear divisions between genders. The story takes place in the late nineteenth century where a rigid distinction between the domestic role of women and the active working role of men exists (“Sparknotes”). The protagonist and female antagonists of the story exemplify the women of their time; trapped in a submissive, controlled, and isolated domestic sphere, where they are treated as fragile and unstable children while the men dominate the public working sphere.
Mrs. Mallard is the example of a typical housewife of the mid 1800’s. At the time, most women were not allowed to go to school and were usually anticipated to marry and do housework. During that time, the only way women could get out of a marriage was if they were to die or their husbands was to die. In that time period, the husband had control of all of the money, so it would not be wise if the wife were to leave the financial freedom that was provided by the husband. This is most likely why Mrs. Mallard never leaves her husband’s death, she is sad at first but then experiences an overwhelming sense of joy. This shows that she is not in a fulfilling marriage as his death means she will finally have own individual freedom, as well as financial freedom being the grieving widow who will inherit her husband’s wealth. In the words of Lawrence I. Berkove he states, “On the other hand, Chopin did not regard marriage as a state of pure and unbroken bliss, but on the other, she could not intelligently believe that it was desirable, healthy, or even possible for anyone to live as Louise, in the grip of her feverish delusion, wishes: to be absolutely free and to live totally and solely for oneself.” (3) Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s death is Chopin’s way of expressin...
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” tries to shed light on the conflict between women and a society that assign gender roles using a patriarchal approach. Specifically Margaret Bauer highlights, that most of Chopin’s works revolves around exploring the “dynamic interrelation between women and men, women and patriarchy, even women and women” (146). Similarly, in “The Story of an Hour” Chopin depicts a society that oppresses women mostly through the institution of marriage, as women are expected to remain submissive regardless of whether they derive any happiness. The question of divorce is not welcome, and it is tragic that freedom of women can only be realized through death. According to Bauer, the society depicted in Chopin’s story judged women harshly as it expected women to play their domestic roles without question, while on the other hand men were free to follow their dream and impose their will on their wives (149).
Chopin reflects her rejection of the “postures of femininity” through her character’s descriptions. She describes her as “young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression.” Describing her as young and calm are what men looked for in a wife in the 19th century. They wanted a submissive woman to tend to their needs as Chopin’s description suggests. Furthermore, Chopin says of her character Mrs. Mallard, “she would live for herself.” Her character believes she will now be free of her marriage, and won’t be “repressed” as aforementioned any longer by her husband. Wives had a natural servitude towards their husbands as husbands worked and went about their lives. All in all, Chopin displays her character as having a joyous moment after the death of her husband because she is let go of being forced into her “femininity.”
A Woman Far Ahead of Her Time, by Ann Bail Howard, discusses the nature of the female characters in Kate Chopin’s novel’s and short stories. Howard suggests that the women in Chopin’s stories are longing for independence and feel torn between the feminine duties of a married woman and the freedom associated with self-reliance. Howard’s view is correct to a point, but Chopin’s female characters can be viewed as more radically feminist than Howard realizes. Rather than simply being torn between independent and dependant versions of her personality, “The Story of an Hour’s” Mrs. Mallard actually rejoices in her newfound freedom, and, in the culmination of the story, the position of the woman has actually been elevated above that of the man, suggesting a much more radically feminist reading than Howard cares to persue.
To start off, this short story is packed with an abundance of symbolism that further highlights the emotions that Mrs. Mallard was feeling after hearing the devastating news of her husband’s death. Although she is instantly overcome with grief upon hearing the news, there were ‘’patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds…” (Chopin 476). These patches of blue sky represent the plethora of opportunities that await Mrs. Mallard now that she has been given a fresh start, with total and unrestricted freedom. Shortly after, Louise begins to comprehend how her husband’s death has in turn completely changed her life for the better. In addition, Mrs. Mallard’s heart troubles also bear a symbolic significance. Her physical heart complications symbolize her discontent with her lack of freedom in her life and marriage. In contrast, when Mrs. Mallard initially realizes the liberty and independence that she now possesses, “her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood w...
... This woman suffers a tremendous amount from the commitment of her marriage, and the death of her husband does not affect her for long. A marriage such as this seems so unbelievable, yet a reader can see the realistic elements incorporated into the story. This begs the question of how undesirable marriage was during Chopin’s life. The unhappiness felt by Mrs. Mallard seems to be very extreme, but Chopin creates a beautiful story that reflects upon the idea of marriage as an undesired relationship and bond to some women in the nineteenth century.
Upon coming to the realization that her husband did not die in a tragic railroad incident as she was told by her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards, in the most delicate manner due to her heart troubles, Mrs. Mallard dies suffering from a heart attack. The doctors claim that the cause of her heart attack was from a “joy that kills”(Chopin, Page 3). Throughout this short story, the author Kate Chopin, focuses on visualizing the emotions and the role that the women of the 19th century had as wives. And so, Kate Chopin shows the role of women and what is expected of them by telling a story of a woman who experiences an emotional transformation as soon as she finds out she is a widow. The emotional transformation that Mrs. Mallard
Mallard. Her self-assertion surpassed the years they were married and the love she had for him. She is beginning to realize she can now live for and focus on herself. The text insists “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.” (Chopin 477.) Finally she can live freely and no longer worry about being confined in her marriage and inside her own home. She has come to realization that she is now independent and can think freely and achieves happiness and freedom. She is no longer held down or back by her marriage. She will no longer be someone’s possession she will be free and respected. Her husband Brently returns and he is alive the happiness and freedom she once possessed briefly with the mere image of her deceased husband were quickly torn away. “When the doctors came they said she died of heart disease of joy that kills” (Chopin 477). She was free but still confined without the knowledge of her husband who wasn’t dead. Chopin illustrates at the end that she was free because joy killed her. She was joyous because she was finally set free but she is now once again confined by the grief knowing her husband was not killed
Not attempting to hide, Mrs. Mallard knows that she will weep at her husbands funeral, however she can’t help this sudden feeling of seeing, “beyond [the] bitter moment [of] procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely” (Chopin, 16). In an unloving marriage of this time, women were trapped in their roles until they were freed by the death of their husbands. Although Mrs. Mallard claims that her husband was kind and loving, she can’t help the sudden spark of joy of her new freedom. This is her view on the release of her oppression from her roles of being a dutiful wife to her husband. Altogether, Mrs. Mallard claims that, “there would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature” (Chopin, 16). This is the most important of Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts, as she never officially states a specific way when her husband oppressed her. However, the audience can clearly suggest that this is a hint towards marriage in general that it suffocates both men and women. Marriage is an equal partnership in which compromise and communication become the dominant ideals to make the marriage better. It is suggested that Mrs. Mallard also oppressed her husband just as much as he did to her when she sinks into the armchair and is, “pressed down by a physical exhaustion