Typical Life of American Wife of the late 1800s: An Analysis of Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

The life of the typical American women in the late 1800s was strictly confined to the four walls of a house. For a wife, marriage, husband and family were the destiny. She had no legal political right or voice in public sphere. They were not supposed to involve in any intellectual pursuits but only in domestic chores like cooking, sewing, cleaning etc. The condition of women in any class (upper, lower or middle) was more or less same. Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin were noted American writers of nineteenth century. Both writers outrageously expressed their strong views on women, marriage and sex. They were revolutionaries of their time. This paper is going to analyse how Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” depict typical public expectations about marriage and women of late 1800s. It also distinguishes the representation of women and wife in the nineteenth century patriarchal American society.


Introduction
In the 1800s, women usually stayed at home. They cleaned the house and cooked and sewed. They didn't often go out to work. The young girls were not allowed in schools. They didn't need to educate because women stayed at home. No women went to university. The man was the head of the family in those days. It was men's responsibility to feed, clothe and protect their family. His wife and children belonged to him. His wife's money and all her things belonged to him too! Women's popular literature of that period was full of advice about and encouragement for proper housekeeping. These advices say women are destined to keep the house clean, nurture their children and take care of their husband. During this century a very few writers like Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman came with their radical literary expressions.
Kate Chopin began writing fiction in 1889 and her short stories and essays enriched with the themes of love, independence, passion and freedom of women. Still she is remembered for her realistic plots and characters. Her short story "The Story of an Hour" is first published in 1894. As the title suggests it the story of an hour and the story show the things happened in the life of Louise Mallard within one hour. In the beginning of the story, Mrs. Louise Mallard, a heart patient was informed about the death of her husband Mr.
Brently Mallard in a railroad accident by her sister Josephine and her husband's friend Richards. The grief stricken Louise locks her in a room and weeps. Later she realizes something happening, "wonderful and terrible at the same time. She is free. Free! Body and soul free! (Chopin 19 illness as the source of inspiration for "The Yellow Wallpaper". The first person narrated story is a collection of journal entries written by a woman whose physician husband, John has rented an old mansion for the summer. As a part of treatment, the unnamed protagonist is forbidden from working or writing, and is encouraged to eat well and get plenty of air, so she can recuperate from what he calls a "temporary nervous depressiona slight hysterical tendency (Gilman 4).", a diagnosis common to women during that period.
The narrator devotes many journal entries to describing the wallpaper in the room and she obsessed with its color, texture and design. She describes when she stays in the bedroom the wallpaper appears to be more mutate, especially in the moonlight. Gradually she hallucinates to a figure in the wallpaper behind the pattern and it eventually comes to creeping on all fours. Believing she must free the figure of woman in the wallpaper, the woman begins to strip the remaining paper off the wall. The narrator refuses to unlock her door, when her husband arrives home. When he returns with the key, he finds her creeping around the room, rubbing against the wallpaper. He faints, but she continues to circle the room, creeping over his inert body each time she passes it, believing herself to have become the woman trapped behind the yellow wallpaper.
Typical Life of American Wife in "Story of an Hour" and "The Yellow Wallpaper" Mrs. Mallard, the protagonist of the "Story of an Hour" enjoys the impermissible independence just for an hour. Her first reaction towards the death news was obviously grief, however the thought of his absence gave her immense happiness, pleasure and freedom.
Louise first reaction was quite normal and up to the expectations of the society including Josephine and Richards. In her private space Mrs. Mallard realizes that now she is an independent woman and the thought of freedom brought her immense joy. She tries to suppress the joy she feels. This shows how restricted this pleasure really is. She feels that the fate given her a chance to taste the forbidden fruit and her happy heart pronounces the word 'free'. Even the physical environment suggests her freedom. Like many other wives in American society during 1800's, Mrs. Mallard was also in an oppressive married life. She knows that she will cry during the funeral because of her loving husband, but beyond that bitter moment she wishes to embrace the free years belongs to her: "And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome (19)." These thought process reveals the inherent oppressiveness of all marriages. Even after Louise death the doctor's diagnosis of "heart disease" seems appropriate because the shock of seeing Brently was surely enough to kill her. It is society's expectation that she died of overwhelming joy but the loss of freedom actually killed her.
The narrator of the story "The Yellow Wallpaper" goes rest cure for a long period of time without even leaving the home. The story reveals that this arrangement had the effect of committing women to a state of dependence and ignorance, because at that time women were Throughout the story, the narrator is restrained from reading, writing and socializing. These are the things she wants to do. That's why "she hurries to put her journal away because John is approaching (Gilman 7)." The narrator's thoughts reflect the ideals of society when she considers John's sister as a perfect woman, because she is an enthusiastic housekeeper. In the name of rest cure, the narrator is forced to silence her emotional as well as intellectual outlet.
Jane Thrailkill points out that the nineteenth-century medical establishment did not understand how to deal with women's mental health issues, often misdiagnosing a whole host of disorders as female hysteria (545). Thraikill explains that physicians employed the "rest cure" as a way to regain control over a situation they did not comprehend. The narrator's "nervous condition" is not hysteria but, rather, probably the result of having recently given