Hour Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin Research Paper

Hour

Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin wrote their two separate short stories, "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "The Story of an Hour," within two years of each other in the 1890s. Because both of them were dealing with a similar theme, the control of women, there are a number of similarities in their plot, symbolism, characters, and other similar aspects of literature.

In the late 1800s, women had few choices in life. If they decided not to marry or could not find a husband, they had to live at home with their parents, teach, become a nanny or, in at worst, become a prostitute. In both the "Yellow Wallpaper" and "Story of an Hour," the women wanted to change their lives and the control their husbands had over them. At the end of each story, they do break away from society's restraints -- ironically, one through a mental breakdown and the other through death.

Both stories utilize a very similar plot, setting, and symbols to come to their unfortunate endings. Each of the women is described as a very sensitive character, as females were characterized during this era. In the story "Yellow Wallpaper," the female narrator's physician says that she has a "temporary nervous depression," which would have been called post-partum depression today. In "The Story of an Hour," Mrs. Mallard is afflicted with heart trouble. However, these illnesses are not actually why these women are treated as they are. It is because wives and mothers had certain roles to perform and are to behave in specific ways dictated by their husbands and society in general.

Although the (no name) woman in "Yellow Wallpaper" is depressed, writing would have helped her considerably. Many times, people who suffer from depression feel better when they keep journals and are allowed to express themselves. Mrs. Mallard supposedly has a congenital heart problem, but her health problem goes deeper than this. It is caused by the heartache she feels by living in a controlling relationship.

In both stories, the setting is also nearly the same. The women are trapped in one room of a home and enclosed by the four walls and a window that teases them with hope of escape. The narrator in "Yellow Wallpaper" even becomes part of the room itself. At first, she feels something strange about the house and living there and foreshadows what is to come. Meanwhile, she only sees the outdoors through her windows. She says, "I can see the garden, those mysterious deep-shaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees. Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house." She is not only talking about the beauty around her house, but of the freedom she would have if on her own.

Mrs. Mallard,…