Their mental illnesses may have been misdiagnosed, and their feelings often overlooked, but the stressors of their life triggered an outbreak of madness. For example, Mrs. Mallard was known for her pre-existing heart condition, yet excerpts from “The Story an Hour” suggest underlying insanity that was prompted by the realization of her desire for freedom. Moreover, the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” experiences levels of insanity through her imagination. Both protagonists experience delirium and brief freedom, but their desire for freedom leads to literal death and figurative death of each character.
To illustrate, Mrs. Mallard dies of a heart attack from the sight of her husband after acceptance of his death and her new, profound freedom. She feels victory over the opportunity of her independence, and finds life in the death of her husband. However, her joy is defeated by the sight of get husband. The death of her husband proves insignificant compared the mourning she has done over her life never lived. Thus, when her dream of freedom died, so did …show more content…
Ironically, John displays an attitude the narrator claims is suspected of men, yet his boastful and dominating personality is described, to some extent, as his form of tenderness. Moreover, the inanimate yellow wallpaper possessed humanistic qualities that led the imagination of the narrator to insanity. Her misdiagnosed postpartum depression caused cleavage in her marriage, but her will to escape the confinement of the yellow wallpaper led to her figurative death because she was left creeping around the house disregarding her unconscious husband. Thus, this may implicate the loss of her dignity because the characteristic of creeping and crawling is usually of an animal, and because her life was dictated by a superior, she leveled with the qualities of a creature. Perhaps the reason for a nameless narrator is prompted from the severity of the social inequality of the sexes in the 19th century, and the impact culture plays in the degree of dignity a woman cultivates in her