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The story of an hour by kate chopin critical analysis
The story of an hour by kate chopin critical analysis
Females in 20th century literature
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Kate Chopin’s “The Story of the Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is viewed from a woman’s perspective of the nineteenth century. They showed the issues on how they were confined to the house. That they were 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 of the control of their husband.
These women did not know how to act when their husband was not around. They had to be controlled because they did not have control over themselves. If their husbands did not have control over them they would have been out of control. In both stories, when the husband is out of the picture they are not in their right mind. They always had someone watching over them like they were a child. When they are left alone, they talk to themselves and lose their mind. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” she was mentally-ill and could not be left alone. She could not function in daily routine. She said that her husband did not treat her like a wife, but instead he treated her like one of his patients. She was only treated that way because she acted like a patient and not like a wife. The only way to help her was to treat her like a patient so that she can get better. In “The Story of the Hour” she wanted her freedom so bad. She was also not in her right mind. She had heart problem and had to be treated delicately. She had a controlling husband who would...
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...er husband comes looking for her because she has locked herself in her room. He was so worried that she might do something crazy. When she trapped herself in her room she wanted to take all the wallpaper off the walls, so that the woman is let free from the bars of the wallpaper that was holding her captives.
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of the Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” both women explore their issues on wanting to be free of the control of their husband. They feel that they need to be free. Both women are not in their right mind and kind of go crazy, when they have some sort of freedom from whatever has a trap on them. In both stories, when the women are left alone they talk themselves about whatever is going on around them. When their husbands are not around they seem to lose control and need to be check on often.
So as we look at the lives of women back in the 19th century, they have the stereotypical trend of being a house wife, staying at home, taking care of kids, the house, and aiding the husband in his work. Being in charge of the household makes women have many responsibilities to take care of, but still women are often looked down upon and men who often think a women’s say is unimportant. The two short stories are about two women who have husbands that are successful and the women who feel suffocated by their lack of ability to live their own lives or make their own decisions. The two stories present similar plots about two wives who have grown to feel imprisoned in their own marriages. In the yellow wallpaper, she is virtually imprisoned in her bedroom, and does not even have a say in the location or decor of the room.
On the surface, the protagonists of Silko's "Yellow Woman" and Chopin's "Story of an Hour" seem to have little in common. Yet upon closer inspection, both stories relate tales of women who are repressed by the social tenets that define their roles as wives.
Comparatively, the relationships between the two main characters in the stories portray women’s yearning for freedom with different types of confinement. Psychological and physical confinements are terms that we can see used through out both stories. While “Story of an hour” basis its character being emotionally confined, and her great awakening being the room in which she grasps the hope of freedom. The settings show the character analyzes her new life, as her barrier and weight of being a wife is lifted, bring fourth new light. We can see in “The Yellow Wallpaper” that the author chose to base the main character John’s wife, around physical confinement in which her room symbolized imprisonment, and due to her illness mental confinement as well. Soon enough we see that her sickness takes hold making her believe she has desperately found freedom, but in reality she has found nothing merely more than herself. Something she had hated throughout the story, ending in only sadness. Telling us Psychological confinement played a big role as her sickness takes hold of her identity leaving behind the
It is unhealthy for any human being to have a restraint on their mind or life. Naturally, a person will become unstable living under such circumstances. People need to express their imagination and live freely in order to remain mentally stable. There are ways to restrain people who need help without controlling and taking away every aspect of their life. Where the female “madness” starts is different with every woman, but there is no doubt that there are certain factors and conditions that develop and escalate the insanity. Jane and Emily in the short stories, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, both prove to be victims of abuse from the male authority
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 and nurturers of the children. Only recently 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 is derived 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 plight near the turn of the 19th century. This era is especially interesting because it is a time in modern society when women were still treated as second class citizens. The two main characters in these stories show similarities, but they are also remarkably different in the ways they deal with their problems and life in general. These two characters will be examined to note the commonalities and differences. Although the two characters are similar in some ways, it will be shown that the woman in the “The Story of an Hour” is a stronger character based on the two important criteria of rationality and freedom.
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.
An Analysis of Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper
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.
Restraints are set by parents on their children to aid with the developmental process and help with the maturity level. Restrictions and the ability to control exist in our society and our lives. We encounter restraints daily: job, doors, people, and the most frequently used and arduous become intangible. In the following stories tangible and intangible scenarios are presented. Autonomy, desires, and talents spurned by the husbands in John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums and Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The authors share views regarding a similar theme of male domination and imprisonment. “The Yellow Wallpaper” involves the treatment of a depressed woman who is driven insane in a male imposed detention in her own room. On the other hand, Elisa Allen in the “The Chrysanthemums” struggles internally to find her place in a fully male dominated society with definite gender roles. The mirror-like situations bring upon a different reaction for both the women in different ways. The importance of symbolism, control from their husbands, and the lack of a healthy marriage will be discussed in this paper in two stories.
The story begins when she and her husband have just moved into a colonial mansion to relieve her chronic nervousness. An ailment her husband has conveniently diagnosed. The husband is a physician and in the beginning of her writing she has nothing but good things to say about him, which is very obedient of her. She speaks of her husband as if he is a father figure and nothing like an equal, which is so important in a relationship. She writes, "He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction." It is in this manner that she first delicately speaks of his total control over her without meaning to and how she has no choices whatsoever. This control is perhaps so imbedded in our main character that it is even seen in her secret writing; "John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition...so I will let it alone and talk about the house." Her husband suggests enormous amounts of bed rest and no human interaction at all. He chooses a "prison-like" room for them to reside in that he anticipates will calm our main character even more into a comma like life but instead awakens her and slowly but surely opens her eyes to a woman tearing the walls down to freedom.
Narrator and Point of View in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Story of an Hour
Women have been mistreated, enchained and dominated by men for most part of the human history. Until the second half of the twentieth century, there was great inequality between the social and economic conditions of men and women (Pearson Education). The battle for women's emancipation, however, had started in 1848 by the first women's rights convention, which was led by some remarkable and brave women (Pearson Education). 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 element of barter from her marriage and love with her husband. This relationship status was very common between nineteenth-century women and their husbands.
“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, “The Chrysanthemums “by John Steinbeck and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman shows each woman trying to escape their feelings of being confined or trapped because of the gender roles of being a perfect wife and mother that are afflicted upon them by those around them.
After an incident where the maid allowed the woman's son to bring a grasshopper into her room, the woman decides to fire her. Perhaps the decision was out of jealousy or just disdain for the harmless prank, but even the woman herself began to realize how much of a burden she became on her family. Without a maid, the husband again took up every responsibility in the house, leaving the woman alone to find her identity. She tries poetry, she tries to watch the world outside, but in the end, she chooses to refuse to see her child and spends her time alone, brushing her hair. When all seemed to be lost, the woman finally ventures out of her room to find that kitchen had changed, and she was inspired by it. She raced back to her room to complete a new, mysterious task. The story ends with a final moment of redemption for the woman, as they find her in a room full of poetry, paintings, food, and clothes, a nod to her old life and role as a
In literature, women are often depicted as weak, compliant, and inferior to men. The nineteenth century was a time period where women were repressed and controlled by their husband and other male figures. Charlotte Gilman, wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper," showing her disagreement with the limitations that society placed on women during the nineteenth century. According to Edsitement, the story is based on an event in Gilman’s life. Gilman suffered from depression, and she went to see a physician name, Silas Weir Mitchell. He prescribed the rest cure, which then drove her into insanity. She then rebelled against his advice, and moved to California to continue writing. She then wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which is inflated version of her experience. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the main character is going through depression and she is being oppressed by her husband and she represents the oppression that many women in society face. Gilman illustrates this effect through the use of symbols such as the yellow wallpaper, the nursery room, and the barred windows.