In society, women are typically stereotyped to be a damsel in distress. Women are mainly depicted as objects and as property of their husband. In a fairytale by Charles Perrault entitled Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, the princess is a very flat character. Primarily focused on her beauty and appearance, the reader never really gets a chance to understand her. The reader only knows her as property of her husband, the Prince, who saves her and their children. In a similar, yet more modern short story by Kate Chopin entitled The Story of an Hour, the woman character is indeed depicted as property of her husband given we only know her as Mrs. Mallard. The difference between these two stories is how the woman changes. Mrs. Mallard deviates from being owned, and takes the path to independence and freedom after her husband's death. Although women are stereotyped to be careless and in constant need of a male to 'save' them and love them, it is interesting to see how woman can deviate from this predetermined path and change to become a person of their own. These stories show a similar beginning where the woman is in need of her man, and depicted as weak, but the stories diverge when Mrs. Mallard starts to envision a life from her own perspective.

Sleeping Beauty in the Wood focuses primarily on the beauty of the princess. She received many gifts from fairies and all of these gifts dealt with physical appearance and talents to make her the ideal individual. The author explained, "By these means the Princess had all the perfections imaginable." (296) Some of these gifts included that "she should be the most beautiful person in the world," and that she could dance, play instruments, and sing angelically as well as be graceful and have the perfect wit. These are all traits that define everything the perfect woman should be. The princess is only known for her beauty, and throughout this story, the reader does not learn anything deeper about her. Everything about her is primarily on the surface, making her a flat character. Also, by making her susceptible to gifts of fairies, especially gifts that are evil, it shows that she is vulnerable and weak. She is also shown as weak because she is relying on a male prince to kiss her and save her. Her fate is completely dependent on that kiss that will wake her up. The Princess is in constant need of being saved. When she falls into her sleep, the fairy puts everyone around her asleep too so she isn't alone and confused when she wakes up. Her father ensures that there will be no spinning or spindles in all the land so that the curse won't come true. Everyone in the story is always doing things for her to save her and help her, which shows how needy she is. The prince also saves her at the end of the story from his ogre-like mother who is trying to put the Princess and her children in a cauldron of snakes and other serpents. The princess is also careless given that she playfully tried to use the spinning machine and carelessly pricked her finger. All of these traits that the princess is given in this story are an exemplary connotation of the stereotype that woman have or are supposed to be like even in todays society.

Mrs. Mallard is depicted fairly similarly to the princess in Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. In the beginning of the story, the reader can grasp that she is weak. She is weak because when she learns of her husband's death, she goes to her room to grieve. Grieving shows that she is an emotional woman. When the author says that "into the seat she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul," it shows that she can't even physically handle her own emotions and that they caused her to be exhausted. Mrs. Mallard also has heart problems, which shows her as a weak woman. The reader also only knows her as property of her husband because she is a housewife while her husband is off at work. She is only known as Mrs. Mallard, we never learn her first name. This is a common theme in portraying the stereotype women have as belonging to a man.

These stories follow the same path up until this point. Both women are weak and in need of their husbands. They are a portrayal of what a typical woman is thought to be. Purely an object to be looked at, an object that is in constant need of saving, and object that is overly emotional, and an object that lets their husband define who they are. At this point though, Mrs. Mallard has an awakening. Amidst all her grief and sadness, she looks up through the window and sees new opportunities. She sees how her marriage broke her down and defined her. She envisions her new life, no longer living for her husband but living for herself. The reader is let in to her thoughts. She is now thinking for herself. The fact that she is just now starting to think that her marriage defined who she shows us that she never thought about this on her own, meaning her husband controlled her. Mrs. Mallard wants to be independent now and live for herself and herself only. The story of the princess ends where the story of Mrs. Mallard's enlightenment is just beginning. Sleeping Beauty never changed around, the reader didn't even know her as a character. The reader could only see her from the perspective of other people because the Princess rarely spoke in the fairytale; we could never be in her head and her thoughts. As the reader, we never got a chance to know the princess because she was completely one-dimensional.

In conclusion, both stories start out similarly but completely diverge by the end to teach two completely polar opposite morals. In Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, there is a moral at the end of the story. It says that women should wait for true love and wait for a man to come rescue them. Bringing the stories to a much bigger point, this is the stereotype that girls are taught at a young age and as they grow up and become women, they live out this stereotype. Both theses stories take two women and show two different paths they could take to either follow the stereotype or deviate away from it and live as their own person. It is crucial that Mrs. Mallard breaks away from this and that her story attempts to demolish this stereotype because it makes a point to show that women have the option to live as their own person. It is a given that they can make their own choices and have their own thoughts, even if they are married. Marriage doesn't make you property and although The Story of an Hour starts out by showing that she is property, it changes and that has a powerful effect to show that women can change this stereotype.
