In the 1800's women did not have nearly as many rights as they do now. They could not vote, they rarely worked, and they were expected to follow orders given by their husbands. The main roles of women in society at that time were to be a wife and mother. Because women were viewed as weak, second-class citizens, they often felt oppressed by their husbands. In the late 1800's, a feminist movement began to try to give women more freedom to do what they wanted, not just what their husbands wanted. Two authors who were a part of this feminist movement were Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. They wrote feminist literature and each one wrote a short story describing a woman who felt oppressed by her husband. Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" tells the story of a woman whose husband dies. At first she is sad but then becomes excited about the prospect of living without her husband. Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" describes a woman who is diagnosed as insane by her husband and she must stay in bed all day for her treatment. She becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper on the wall because she believes there is a woman trapped in the wallpaper. Then she believes that she is the one that is trapped by her husband and she feels the need to escape. These stories contain similar themes relating to the feminist movement. Reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" can help people better understand Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour."

In "The Story of an Hour," Louise is overjoyed by her husband's death because she is excited to live on her own. The story describes how she has a heart condition and this could be part of the explanation of why she was excited to live without her husband. "The Yellow Wallpaper" describes what it was like to be a woman with an illness in the 1800's. Rather than medicine, the main character in this story is told to stay in bed all day to cure her condition. She talks about how she wants to be active but because of her mental condition, but her husband won't let her do anything. She says, "Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good" (Gilman 209). This treatment of a woman from her husband can explain why Louise in "The Story of an Hour" felt so relieved at her husband's death. At the time, women were thought of as frail and weak, unable to take care of themselves. In "The Story of an Hour," Louise's sister believes that Louise will harm herself after she learns of her husband's death. "'Go away. I am not making myself ill.' No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window" (Chopin 224). In "The Story of an Hour," Louise does not explicitly complain about how her husband treats her heart condition. However, "The Yellow Wallpaper" gives insight to how husbands and doctors usually felt about women's illnesses. The main character of "The Yellow Wallpaper" gets so tired of her treatment that she eventually goes insane. Since Louise was also a sick woman in the 1800's, she, too, probably felt belittled by her husband because of her condition. This is an example of how reading "The Yellow Wallpaper" can help readers to better understand "The Story of an Hour."

Another theme that is in both stories is the feeling of being trapped. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator believes there is a woman who is trapped in the wallpaper. As she grows more insane, she begins to think that she is the woman in the wallpaper. At the end of the story her husband is knocking on the door and she replies, "'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" (221). The narrator felt trapped by her husband and the treatment he gave her and it drove her to the point of insanity. In "The Story of an Hour," Louise also feels trapped by her husband. After she hears of her husband's death she thinks about what her life will be like going forward. She thinks, "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. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination" (224). Once she thinks that she will be a widow she becomes happy and says that she is now free. This feeling of being trapped by a husband is a theme in both "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "The Story of an Hour."

Both of these stories have tragic endings, as well. After staying in bed for months, the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" starts losing her mind. By the end of the story, she is insane. She believes that she was trapped in the wallpaper so she tears the wallpaper off the wall and then believes that she has been freed. Once her husband sees her, he passes out. In "The Story of an Hour," Louise goes from being excited about the rest of her life to being terrified and eventually dying. After she hears the news about her husband's death she becomes happy about what the rest of her life will bring. However, it turns out that her husband did not die, after all. She walks down the stairs and sees her husband at the bottom. When she sees that in reality, he is not dead, she dies from her heart condition. The fact that both of these stories have tragic endings shows what feminists believed was their quality of life in the 1800's. Both of these stories are depressing because the authors believed that women at the time were oppressed. This similarity in the stories shows how reading "The Yellow Wallpaper" can help better understand "The Story of an Hour."

A window is a common symbol in both of these stories. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the narrator talks about how she looks out the window to distract her from the boring room she is in. She states, "Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deep-shaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushed and gnarly trees" (211). In "The Story of an Hour," Louise looks out a window as she contemplates her future without a husband. "Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own" (224). In both of these stories, the window symbolizes freedom. Both women feel oppressed by their husbands and the window is a way of imagining a life that they could live without him. The symbol of a window in "The Yellow Wallpaper" can help readers understand the same symbol when it appears in "The Story of an Hour."

With every social movement in history, there have been authors who wrote stories with themes that support ideas of the movement. Both Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote stories dealing with the oppression of women in the 1800's. Although there were many ways that women were oppressed, one of their biggest oppressors were their husbands. "The Yellow Wallpaper" tells the story of a woman who is told by her husband to stay in bed all day and she eventually goes insane because of this treatment. In "The Story of an Hour," Louise is overjoyed at the thought of living without the oppression of her husband. In fact, she is so excited that when she learns her husband is alive after all, she dies of a heart disease. Readers might be confused as to why she is so upset about having to live her husband that she dies. However, "The Yellow Wallpaper" gives insight to what it was like to be a woman who was oppressed by her husband in the 1800's. "The Yellow Wallpaper" helps explain the underlying unhappiness that Louise is feeling in "The Story of an Hour." Reading "The Yellow Wallpaper" can help readers better understand "The Story of an Hour."

