Story Of An Hour And The Yellow Wallpaper Analysis

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Escaping the Feministic View “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman are both unified on the feministic views of women coming into the world. Taking into account the year in which these stories where written (1899 & 1894) the idea of male dominance and suppression of most women voices was idyllic in the structure of the era. Women of the time believed men recalled all the knowledge and they were to pay attention to their strong male counterparts. When a woman married, her husband legally owned all she had including her children. If he died, she would be entitled to only one third of her husband’s estate. Both Kate and Charlotte fought this in their writings, to seek an independence from their oppression.
The narrator’s spouse, John, also establishes his dominance by talking down to his wife. We see this in the following quote: "What is it, little girl?" he said. "Don 't go walking about like that--you 'll get cold." While in “The Story of An Hour”, there is a different form of male dominance. We find that Mrs. Mallard has been living a life of oppression in this story, and after reading the whole text in entirety; it is clear that Mrs. Mallard had been in a marriage that wasn’t going to let her fulfill her dreams and
We see this more dominantly in “The Story of An Hour” when she describes the happiness that comes after the grief as a result of the fact that she is now free. She now comes to the conclusion that she is independent, and with this new found independency she can begin to do the things she had sought to do. She is alive with the sense of not being a stay at home housewife of the era, free to explore her new found life. She had gained a sense of freedom when she whispered, “Free! Body and soul free!” over and over. Whereas the role of the main female/wife in “The Yellow Wallpaper” has trouble finding herself, due to her illness and the restraints her husband has condoned her to. During the course of the story, the speaker finds it troubling to express the way she feels about the room she has in the house. This is represented by the wallpaper itself in the house, describing it symbolically as a girl trapped behind bars within the paper, is meant to be symbolic of the narrator. In the conclusion of the story she is freeing herself from the confinements of the wallpaper by tearing it down as she steps over her fainted husband as she goes around and around the room. The tearing down the wallpaper and liberating the girl trapped within, represents herself becoming free and independent. The manner in which she writes the story is also a big hint as to the lack of autonomy since

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