Story Of An Hour Women

From the late 1800s to the mid 1900s women were forced to get married. During this time period First Wave Feminism existed and women had to marry to gain property because women did not have property rights which was problematic for single women. Women however, did fight against these injustices. During this wave they fought against the idea of “Angel in the House”, which is the idea that women should be devoted to her husband and family, marriage laws reform, and property rights. American writer Kate Chopin wrote the short story “The Story of an Hour”exposing the harsh reality of marriage for women during the 19th century. “The Story of an Hour” is short story about a married young woman named Louise Mallard who has been told that her husband
Her husband’s death is a path to a new life without the oppression of her husband. Louise is overcoming the oppression she was under and is visualizing a new life now that she has no husband to oppress her. Moreover, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator sees a woman behind the hideous wallpaper in her room. The woman shakes the “bars” hard during the night trying to escape. The narrator narrates, “At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candle light, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars!... The front pattern does move-and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over. Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady pots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard. And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern.”(Gilman 164-166) The woman behind the wallpaper is trapped behind the bars of patriarchy. She is represents the women during that time where they lived under the oppression of their husbands and how most tried to fight against it. Women were supposed to at home during the day devoting themselves to their homes, children, and husbands but they fought against this idea like the woman behind the wallpaper is trying to break free from the patriarchal oppression women had to endure. Both works show that both characters undergo oppression. Louise lived under an oppressive marriage for so long that once her husband died she became excited to her new life and new found freedom. The woman behind the yellow wallpaper locked behind bars trying to find a way to break