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Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman were both highly influential realist and naturalist writers. Both authors wrote many pieces of literature which are focused around feminist themes and ideas of life and death. Two of these pieces are “The Yellow Wallpaper”, which is written by Gilman, and “Desiree’s Baby”, which is written by Chopin. Many factors have influenced these writers, such as stressors of their time periods, life experiences, and personal beliefs. Both of these short stories exhibit feminism due to life experiences as well as different viewpoints on death based on personal beliefs.
Comparing Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' and Kate Chopin's 'The Story of an Hour'
At the time Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” she was considered a prominent feminist writer. This piece of background information allows the readers to see Gilman’s views on women’s rights and roles in the 18th century; “The Yellow Wallpaper” suggests that women in the 18th century were suppressed into society’s marital gender roles. Gilman uses the setting and figurative language, such as symbolism, imagery, and metaphors to convey the theme across.
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
There was a time (not so long ago) when a man's superiority and authority wasn't a question, but an accepted truth. In the two short stories, "Desiree's Baby", and "The Yellow Wallpaper", women are portrayed as weak creatures of vanity with shallow or absent personalities, who are dependent on men for their livelihood, and even their sanity. Without men, these women were absolutely helpless and useless. Their very existence hinged on absolute and unquestioning submission…alone, a woman is nothing.
Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman lived and wrote around the same time during the nineteenth century. This time period, like most others, is characterized by a society which the patriarch is the center and leader of the family structure. The protagonists in each story are women, who are trapped by the circumstances surrounding their current situations within society. Each protagonist finds liberation in very different ways, each leading to a downfall that is inescapable in the society of the time period. In The Awakening, Edna begins to learn and experience things that empower her and lead her to believe that she can become more independent. The new freedom that she enjoys is only fleeting as the dictates of society do not allow for such freedom from a married woman with children. The protagonist of The Yellow Wallpaper is trapped by a much different set of circumstances. Her husband believes she is mentally ill and begins to deprive her of the freedoms, such as writing, that she has previous...
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.
Even though “The Yellow Wallpaper” and The Bell Jar were published over seventy years apart from each other, they have a plethora of similar themes and issues they discuss. A distinct claim the two women discuss at length is gender roles. During both author’s times, women were expected to obey and submit to the will of their husbands and other men in their lives. This proved to be difficult for Gilman especially when her husband and her male doctor both recommended that restreatment she detested so greatly (Dyer). The expectations for wives only add on when they became mothers. After both of the women’s births, they experienced postpartum depression and yearned to escape through writing. “The Yellow Wallpaper” examines the concept of writing as a way to release pain and lessen trials. The successes of their writing brought great joy to both Gilman and Plath. Gilman used her fame to speak out and the “well-known author and was invited to speak regularly on the subject of women’s rights and economic independence” which brought her happiness and purpose in life (“Bed Rest”). For Plath, the success of her novel freed
As humans, we live our life within the boundaries of our belief systems and moral guidelines we were raised with. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and “Desiree’s Baby” tells the story of two women who live according to those societal boundaries.
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the reader journeys into the complex, deteriorating mind of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Through symbolism, Gilman issues a profound statement against the accepted subjugation of women during the 19th century. The narrator's internal dialogue sets the tone of the story and allows the reader to experience her horrifying delusions. Additionally, the use of irony illustrates the repressive nature of her marital relationship. In the end, both freedom and insanity lie behind the yellow wallpaper of the narrator’s world.
Society continually places specific and often restrictive standards on the female gender. While modern women have overcome many unfair prejudices, late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century women were forced to deal with a less than understanding culture. Different people had various ways of voicing their opinions concerning gender inequalities, including expressing themselves through literature. By writing a fictional story, authors like Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henry James were given the opportunity to let readers understand and develop their own ideas on such a serious topic.
There are notable similarities between Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. These similarities include the treatment of space, the use of a gothic tone with elements of realism, a sense of male superiority, and the mental instability of women.
Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells her readers the story of a woman desperate to be free. Gilman’s use of symbolism is nothing short of brilliant in telling the story of a new mother suffering from postpartum depression and fighting her way through societies ideas of what a woman should be. When her husband, John, also known as her physician, tells her nothing is wrong with her mind, at first she believes him because she knows that society tells her she should. However, with her husband’s misdiagnosis, or attempt to keep his wife sane for the sake of their reputation, comes a short journey into madness for his wife, Jane. Jane’s downward spiral, as one may call it, turns out to be not so downward when the reader
One of the most notable feminists of that period was the writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. She was also one of the most influential feminists who felt strongly about and spoke frequently on the nineteenth-century lives for women. Her short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper" characterizes the condition of women of the nineteenth century through the main character’s life and actions in the text. It is considered to be one of the most influential pieces because of its realism and prime examples of treatment of women in that time. This essay analyzes issues the protagonist goes through while she is trying to break the barter from her marriage and love with her husband.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" serves as a semi-autobiographical short story that deals with the struggles of postpartum psychosis and its' repercussions as witnessed through the story's unnamed female narrator. By analyzing, Gilman’s approach to exploring the concept of social conventions and patriarchal oppression. Gilman's story can be analyzed in depth as both being an anti-feminist and feminist piece of literature. These aspects include the narrator's husband treatment towards her individuality, her fascination with the yellow wallpaper and her eventual fulfillment of independence.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” to express her opinions about feminism and originality. Gilman does so by taking the reader through the terrors of one woman's psychological disorder, her entire mental state characterized by her encounters with the wallpaper in her room. She incorporates imagery and symbolism to show how confined the narrator is because of her gender and mental illness.