Cult Of Domesticity Essay

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Throughout time women have always been seen as the weakest of the genders, while men are seen as superior. The Cult of Domesticity was an ideology society had about women during the nineteenth century. They believed a woman was supposed to be pious, pure, submissive and domestic to be considered a true woman. Some stories that show women in this ideology are The Yellow Wall-Paper, The Storm, and The Story of an Hour. These three stories portray women living under the Cult of Domesticity or at least trying to fulfill it. The Yellow-Wallpaper is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It narrates the story of an unnamed woman that is subjected to the famous “rest cure” in order to cure her from her mental illness. This story shows …show more content…

This story focuses on the extra-marital affair a housewife named Calixta has while her husband and son are away due to a storm. Although we learn that Calixta has an affair we also know that she doesn’t completely defy the Cult of Domesticity. From the story we get the idea that she remained pure until she married her husband and as Chopin tells us in page 689 “She had not seen him very often since her marriage, and never alone,” this line suggest that even if she saw her past lover around she would not speak to him because neither of them were ever alone and they both didn’t want to disrespect their marriages. In addition Calixta seems to be a very good housewife and mother. She appears to be always tending her home. In page 689 we learn that “[sitting} at a side window sewing furiously on a sewing machine. [Calixta] was greatly occupied and did not notice the approaching storm.” She is so focused on her chores that she didn’t even notice a storm. For Calixta sewing and doing chores around the house is what is normal. She has assumed a role as a married woman and mother and she is fulfilling it. Before the affair you can say that by societies expectations she was a true woman, she kept her virginity until marriage, she makes sure her house chores are done, and she takes care of her family. Even after the affair she acts as if nothing has …show more content…

This is a story of a series of events that happen within an hour to a woman named Louise Mallard. Louise is a housewife who learns her husband has died in a train accident. Feeling joy about being free she starts seeing life in a different way. That is until at the end of the story she sees her husband well and alive. She cries at the sight of him and dies. The story ends with a doctor saying “she had died of a heart disease—of the joy that kills” (Chopin). Even though the story doesn’t describe Louise doing chores at the house like in The Storm we know that she was a good wife because of the way she reacts when she learns that her husband is dead. Louise gets described as “young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength” (Chopin). From this line we get a bit of insight into her marriage and herself. We get the idea that she wasn’t happy being married to her husband but still remained with him and did her duties as she was supposed to. In reality her being a good wife was all an act to fit in society’s expectations of a woman being domestic and submissive. As she spend more time in her room alone thinking about her dead husband she realizes life would finally be different for her. She knows that “there would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself” (Chopin) For a long time in

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