Imagining a life in which one's everyday schedule and overall purpose in life is dictated by another person or society as a whole is hard for many American's today to imagine. It would be hard for many American's today to understand the feeling of entrapment that women in the late nineteenth century felt on a daily basis. In "The Yellow Wallpaper", Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells the story of a woman, the narrator, who feels somewhat physically and emotionally trapped by the world around her. Another piece of literature called "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, written only two years after "The Yellow Wallpaper", also expresses the physical and emotional oppression felt by women in the late nineteenth century. Kate Chopin's story gives aid to the theme of oppression in Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" by ways of similar main characters, and a reoccurring sense of entrapment and desire for freedom. 

"The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin has a parallel theme to "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; the theme is that women of the late nineteenth century felt trapped by the world around them and they wanted to escape. This theme of entrapment is evident throughout Chopin's "The Story of an Hour". In "The Story of an Hour" a woman named Louise Mallard, who has heart problems, is told that her husband was killed in a rail accident. As Louise begins to mourn she suddenly feels a sense of freedom come upon her as she begins to whisper the word "free". Just when she begins to be at peace with her new, freeing life without her husband, the door opens and in walks her husband. At the sight of her living husband Louise falls to the ground dead of a heart attack. Chopin's story written only two years after Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" aids the fact that women in America in the late nineteenth century felt that they were trapped by their husband's and society as a whole. 

If one were to read the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman without any outside information of the late nineteenth century or without reading any other pieces written during this time period the reader would simply interpret the text as a woman who was surely mentally handicapped becoming insane. One may interpret the woman in the wallpaper trying to escape as some sort of inner being of the narrator. Though through the aid of outside sources giving background information on the late nineteenth century one is able to see what was happening in America during the time period in which "The Yellow Wallpaper" was written; which was the physical and emotional oppression of women in America. This information aids the interpretation that the narrator trying to escape her isolation and the woman trying to escape the wallpaper were representations of women during the late nineteenth century trying to escape the oppression that they were feeling. 

The article "The Cult of True Womanhood" by Barbara Welter, is an article explaining the life of an average American woman in the late nineteenth century. The article explains the trials and tribulations that a woman living in America during the late nineteenth century faced societally on a daily basis. In the article it states that in the late nineteenth century American women began to disagree with what society had labelled "the attributes of  True Womanhood" which were "four cardinal virtues--piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity" and by these attributes was how "a woman judged herself and was judged by her husband, her neighbors and society" (Welter), this means that in this time period many women began to disagree with the social stereotype that women were to be defined by their husbands and what society thought of them. In a way, a women being defined by her husband and society does not allow a women to be her own person, which takes away a woman's identity and traps her in the image of others. The idea of physical and emotional entrapment felt by American women during the late nineteenth century coincides with the idea of entrapment felt by the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper". In "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman the narrator is trying to escape her isolation and the woman who is trying to escape the wallpaper were representations of woman during the late nineteenth century trying to escape the oppression that they were feeling.

Later in the article "Cult of True Womanhood", Welter discusses how woman of the late nineteenth century inwardly wanted to be respected as a human and wanted an identity, that is to say, women were beginning to realize that they were people too and they needed a voice as well. In a way women in America during the late nineteenth century were trapped by the societal standards in which they were held to, but by stating that women of this time period desired to be respected as an individual can be interpreted as women attempting to escape the social entrapment placed on them by gender roles of the nineteenth century world. Similarly in the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman throughout the entire story the narrator saw a woman trapped inside of the wallpaper who, near the end, was trying to escape. The information presented on the late nineteenth century, given from the article "Cult of True Womanhood", aids the interpretation that the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper", and the woman seen in the wallpaper both represented women during the late nineteenth century. In this interpretation, the narrator represented the oppression of women in the nineteenth century and the woman seen in the wallpaper represented how women wanted to escape their oppression in the nineteenth century.

Another similar short story written in the late nineteenth century was "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin. As mentioned earlier, in this story a woman named Louise Mallard is told that her husband was killed in a rail accident. Though it turns out that her husband is not dead and due to this news, Louise dies. This short story is very similar to the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In "The Yellow Wallpaper" the narrator feels oppressed by her husband telling her what to do the entire story and not believing that she has serious depression. This is similar to the short story "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, because in this story Louise feels a sense of freedom when she hears that her husband is dead, which points to the idea that she felt trapped in her relationship with her husband; as if she could not be her own person with him. In both stories the two main characters are in relationships in which they feel trapped or oppressed by their husbands. Furthermore, the freeing feeling felt by the main character of "The Story of an Hour", Louise, can be directly compared with the obsession that the narrator had with freeing the woman from the wall paper in "The Yellow Wallpaper". In both stories there is an overarching theme of the desire for freedom in the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Louise from "The Story of an Hour". The evidence depicted in the short story "The Story of an Hour" in which the main character feels oppressed by her husband and is desperately searching for a sense of freedom, aids to the interpretation of "The Yellow Wallpaper" in which the narrator is a representation of how women were treated in the late nineteenth century and the woman in the wallpaper was a representation of how women desired to be free of oppression in the late nineteenth century. "The Story of an Hour" aids this interpretation of "The Yellow Wallpaper" by demonstrating that all women in the late nineteenth century did indeed feel oppressed by society's stereotypes in which the husband defined the wife.

In conclusion, the article "Cult of True Womanhood" by Barbara Welter aids the interpretation in which the narrator and the woman seen in the wallpaper in "The Yellow Wallpaper" both represented the women in the late nineteenth century by explaining how women were viewed during that time and how women felt during that time. The short story "The Story of an Hour" helps demonstrate the interpretation of "The Yellow Wallpaper" by demonstrating that all women in the late nineteenth century did indeed feel oppressed by society's stereotypes in which the husband defined the wife, and that women were indeed trying to escape their oppression.

