Compare And Contrast The Yellow Wallpaper And The Story Of An Hour

The Isolated Rooms Where Women Transform The short stories “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin can be considered as a feminist and gender theory. It is noted that both stories were written by women and narrated from a woman’s point of view. In this regard, we find that the plots in both these stories are altogether different from each other, yet they both touch upon similar topics and can be said to be fundamentally the same as to themes and with respect to their purpose. Both stories discuss the tremendous differences that existed between the social parts that ladies and men had to play in the 19th century. This is because men were considered to be socially responsible and they were allowed to make independent choices in regards to their lives, while the women were portrayed as being second class citizens whose identity was only because of the men in their lives.
In “The Story of an Hour,” we find that Mrs. Mallard locks herself up in her room and starts to think about how her life is going to change. In the “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator is, again, inside a room and left alone. In both these cases, we find that the women are expected to act according to their preset ways in front of society. They have to act proper, lady like, obey the expected eloquent norms of society. However, when they are inside the rooms, the transformations start to occur in isolation, especially being away from their husbands. For instance, Mrs. Mallard sees the world outside her window and she feels that she is finally going to have freedom, live a life of her own. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” starts to have a mental breakdown by finding an image of a woman in the pattern of the wallpaper, and tries to free her by ripping the wallpaper off the wall (Quawas