Story of An Hour v. Yellow Wallpaper

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” are two short stories which incorporate similar qualities throughout. In both these stories, we follow the story of a woman who is mentally or physically ill who has been secluded from the world and forced to live their lives inside the confines of their homes. The two women are forced by their husbands to live in solidarity because, in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator following the birth of her child suffers from postpartum depression. However, her husband being a respected physician, diagnoses her with hysteria and prescribes to her rest and leases a home in the county for her. John, ignoring all of the narrator’s suggestions, ultimately keeps her trapped in this home which will eventually lead her to insanity. As for where in “The Story of an Hour,” Louise Mallard suffers from heart trouble and must not be exited to trigger potential heart failure. However, the recent passing of her husband put her caregivers in a tricky position having to communicate this information very gently to Louise. Louise, after hearing these news, locks herself in her room where slowly her sadness begins to reveal a feeling of freedom. Fearing of her Louise illness, Josephine, her caregiver beings to beg for Louise to open the door as which she does thrilled by the taught of her newly found freedom in the world. However, as the sight of her unharmed husband walks through the door, Louise falls and dies of a heart attack.

In both stories, we see the commonality of the women’s motivation for acquiring freedom from their oppressing partners. But whereas in Story of an Hour, the woman’s point of view offers a look of a potential life where she is free, The Yellow Wallpaper provides us with the process of acquiring that freedom. However, both stories sharing a similar setting will ultimately lead us to the same climax of demise for the women.

In this video, we are able to take a closer look at the gender roles of both men and woman to better understand the time frame of these stories and what was expected of each gender. As it says, “Women, on the other hand, lived in the private sphere of life.”

Implicit Motivation

Both short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Story of an Hour,” share the same desire for freedom from the life they are trapped in. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” freedom is the goal that the narrator wishes to reach subconsciously. This is shown when it says, “I don’t like to look out of the windows even — there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?” (Gilman 656) Here, you can see that the narrator finally realizes that the woman behind the wallpaper was indeed a symbolism of herself. When she finally tears off all of the wallpaper, she is gaining her freedom and tearing away from the imposing figure of her husband.

In this gif, we see a movie quote that could show the irony in these stories. As in both stories their motivation is to be free and they would do anything to obtain it, which ultimately leads to both of their demises.

Similarly, in “The Story of an Hour,” Louise is excited and thrilled about what’s to come in her life now that an imposing figure is no longer controlling her actions. This is shown when the narrator says, “She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.” (Chopin 3) This quote shows the reader that yesterday Louise felt like she might have had a long, dull life ahead of her beside her husband. However, her husband’s death had now opened up a new chapter in her life, which she was ready to explore and do so independently.

However, these stories do differ in the fact that in “The Story of an Hour,” the narrator was not at all motivated to get rid of her husband until it had “been done for her”. While in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the main character is actively trying to free herself from her husband. Even is she is not making a direct connection between herself and the lady trapped behind the wallpaper, the narrator is subconsciously actively trying to rid herself of what is keeping her from her autonomy.

Point of View

Now, where the two stories differ is the point of view in which the author takes you down. While in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman takes you down of path of a woman slowly losing her sanity all to finally achieve freedom, “The Story of an Hour” take you down a route of a woman who has high aspirations of life now that she believes she is free. However, both stories ultimately come to a sour ending with both women never really reaching that aspiration. Although similarly, both stories do indeed take you down a path of 1st person narration, as we see the story down the main character's point of view.

Here we see the point of view of women, and how they feel about oppression held upon them for hundreds of years.

This can be seen in Gilman’s story when the narrator says, “I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard! It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please! I don’t want to go outside.” (Gilman 656) Here, we see that the narrator has now fully embraced the fact that she is the woman behind the wallpaper. So, when she states, “I’ve got out at last” (Gilman 656), she has finally been able to free herself from the wallpaper, but at the cost of her sanity. In contrast, “The Story of an Hour” leads us to believe that Louise will live a happy life despite the news of her husband’s death. As she sits in her room thinking of what her life will be after the tragedy, “There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.” (Chopin 2) She truly believes that now that no male figure will be imposing his will upon her, she will finally live a life of happiness and joy, a life that she gets to live independently. However, as the story moves forward and her fantasies are demolished at the sight of her husband’s well-being, Louise dies and never achieves that life she desired.

Enclosed Setting

Finally, both “The Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” share the commonality of an enclosed room in which the main characters get to express their thoughts and let the audience know what they are thinking. In “Story of an Hour” we see this when the narrator states, “ When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.” (Chopin 1) Here we see that the main character willingly confines herself in a room in order to have peace in mind and be able to process what has just happened. Similarly, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” we see this when the main character says, “ I’ve got out at last,” said I, “in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” Here we see that the main character is identifying herself with the woman trapped in the paper, she might have been trapped before but now she believes that she is free and not enclosed in the wall. However meanwhile in “The Yellow Wallpaper” the character is forced into isolation by her husband but she still finds peace in isolation, in “The Story of an Hour”, the character willingly goes and locks herself in a room to find peace.

“I keep stressin my mind, mind. I look for peace, but see I don’t attain.” In this song, I see a connection in which a character is lost but finds freedom in being alone.

In conclusion, both of these stories share commonalities in their points of view, their enclosed settings, and the main character's motivation. However, each story does have a different way of expressing all those elements as they are written by different writers. But in closing, I think they both tried to tell us the same story and educate us a bit about how women were treated back then. This is very important to do as we wouldn’t want to regress progress and go back to the olden ways, it’s good to educate ourselves and understand our past to better our society in the future.