Women In Story Of An Hour And

Essay, Research Paper

Women in Story of an Hour and The Yellow Wallpaper

Two women from two different books shared the same contrast and similarities. From the books of The Story of the Hour by Kate Chapin, and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins. These two stories had a lot in common and shared a lot of the same views about women in the late 1800 s. Both stories showed the horrifying tragic that happened to two women in the late 1800 s. The essay will show the similarity and differences between two women in each story.

In the Story of an Hour , Mrs. Mallard had heart trouble. Her husband s friend Richard had discovered that Mrs. Mallard s husband, Brently Mallard was involved in a bad accident on the job, and his name was on the deceased list. Mrs. Mallard sister, Josephine tells her about her husband s death in bits and pieces. When Mrs. Mallard heard of her husband s death, she was overwhelmed because she figured that she would finally get the chance to live her life the way she would like to live it. Suddenly someone opened the door and it was Mrs. Mallard s husband Brently. After seeing her husband walk through the door Mrs. Mallard had a heart attack and died. Her sister and her husband s friend Richard don t know if she died of shock at seeing her husband live, or out of joy, or out of despair.

In The Yellow Wallpaper , John s wife was trying to heal from a nervous disorder. Because John s wife s doctor suggested that she get plenty of rest, her husband rented a house for three months while their home was being remodeled. She could not do anything, not even visit her friends and family. John s wife eventually went insane.

The main setting of both stories, took place in a room; however these two rooms had very different environments. In The Story of the Hour , the author portrayed peacefulness in Mrs. Mallard after she heard about the death of her husband. She was looking forward to a new life. She sat in her room and looked outside of the window. She was enjoying the life from outside by watching the trees and smelling the rain in the air.

On the other hand, The Yellow Wallpaper was set in a room that showed sign of imprisonment. There were bars on the windows, a gate at the top of the stairs, the bed was nailed to the floor, and the wallpaper reminded her of bars with a woman trapped behind it.

The relationship between the two women in each story, were very similar. Both of the women were sick. When Mrs. Mallard s sister told her about her husband s death, her sister told her in sentence fragments. Mrs. Mallard remembered her husband having tender hands and a loving spirit. In The Yellow Wallpaper , John also took very good care of his wife. Both of these men portrayed to be good husbands to their wives, but both women wanted to be in control of their own lives instead of their husbands being in control of it. Instead, they endured the treatment due senseless children. When Mrs. Mallard received the bad new about her husband s death, Mrs. Mallard went to her room and cried like a child. Mrs. Mallard also was overjoyed to the new life that she was painting for herself as a widow. She made the statement, Free, free, free meaning that she was free from her controlling husband. In The Yellow Wallpaper the woman was referred to by her husband as: little girl or my little goose . Her husband controlled his wife s life. The woman tried to overcome her own illness and her eventual insanity, but her husband, John, always tried to keep is wife in her room without anything to do but recover from her illness. The only thing that she did was stare at the yellow wallpaper in the room. Because of this prison that she was in, she started to see images in the yellow wallpaper that she stared at all day. The images she saw were a woman, and then women trapped behind the yellow wallpaper. By being a woman and married, she became sick and imprisoned much like her women images. At the end she rips off as much of the wallpaper as she could to symbolically free herself and the figure behind the paper that her husband and his sister Jennie had kept her in.

The problem that these women had to go through in the late 1800 s are still happen today. In the late 1800 s women didn t have much control over their lives as they do today. Today, husbands and wives are very equal in all walks of life. We have overcome the situations that these two women where in and they are growing stronger everyday.