The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman are both old-fashioned when it comes to the gender roles they perceive are acceptable for women. Charlotte Gilman’s short story is about a woman whose mental sickness has caused her husband to take action into his own hands. Most would not take it as far as renting a private asylum and locking their wife up to destroy any possible freedom or social life they may have, but after all this was written in the 19th century, and at this time woman were victims of the hierarchy. The Story of an Hour has a very similar situation to The Yellow Wallpaper. This short story is about a woman who is informed that her husband, a railroad worker, has “died”. Instead of being sad and depressed about the news of her husband’s death, she actually cries tears of joy. This woman along with many others prior to the 20th century was never given the freedom needed to achieve her own set of dreams. Both of these short stories are very focused on old-fashioned gender roles and how they affect a woman’s freedom, mental health, and marriage. 

Freedom is one of the most fought over ideas to date. To earn one’s freedom is like earning the right to live an enjoyable life. Chopin and Gilman do a great job when it comes to illustrating the idea that women were shackled down in their marriages and allowed no such thing as freedom even though both are American writers. In The Yellow Wallpaper the woman’s husband restricts all of her freedom. Due to her being sick she is not allowed to socialize or practice her favorite activity which is writing. Instead she is locked in an old nursery where the windows are barred up like a jail cell. In The Yellow Wallpaper the woman says “I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal — having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.” (16) Her husband did not allow her to write which is absurd. Every human should have the right to express their own feelings. The same is true with The Story of an Hour. The young woman in this story also lacks freedom. The narrator states “When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!” (11) In order for someone to wish the death of someone else their living conditions must be atrocious. Although The Story of an Hour is too short and doesn’t go into great enough detail as to how she is restricted from freedom, one can assume by the way she reacts to her husband’s death that she had been wanting it for a very long time. It is sad to believe that the gender roles of the earlier centuries restricted them from pursuing their dreams and their freedom.

The mental health of these women deteriorate due to the gender roles that were placed upon them. In The Yellow Wallpaper the woman’s husband believes to always be right. Due to the fact that he is a male and a physician he truly believes that he knows what is best for his wife which he decides to be seclusion and caging. Obviously the husband did the wrong thing, but even the wife was not sure. He had told her so many times that he was right in what he was doing that she came around to believe and trust him. "Better in body perhaps—" I began, and stopped short, for he sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say another word. "My darling," said he, "I beg of you, for my sake and for our child's sake, as well as for your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?"(140) This is a quote from the physician after his wife tried to express her own opinion. It’s obvious that men did not look at women as though they were as smart as them which would over time make an impact on their mentality. You can’t be told hundreds of times that you can’t do or achieve something and not let it make you believe that maybe you can’t. In order for a human to have a healthy and respectable way of thinking they have to be supported and encouraged and not shot down. In The Story of an Hour the young woman had an obvious case of depression. Her depression had gotten to the point where she realized that the only way she could live any longer was if she no longer had a man that controlled her life. The final line says “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of joy that kills.” (23) When she realized that her husband was still alive her heart gave out and she died. She thought she was going to be able to change her life and get rid of depression, but her husband’s return ended those ideas and with those ideas she ended too.

Both of these stories are very focused on how gender roles make an impact on marriage. During the time that both of these short stories were written women weren’t allowed to divorce their husbands. An online source states “In this chapter the marriage of the couple in Gilman’s story will be examined in an attempt to analyze the failure of the relationship between the married couple in The Yellow Wallpaper as the product of two immature people who have not successfully completed the Oedipus or Electra phase of adolescence. Unable to choose a complementary mate, as Aristophanes suggests, they choose their mates for narcissistic purposes that destroy them. What the article is saying is that marriage wasn’t formed based on love. Marriage was formed based on the fact that men needed admiration from woman, but lack understanding of the women’s feelings. The same holds true with The Story of an Hour. The woman was stuck in a relationship with a man that didn’t understand her. She craved freedom from her husband so bad that she was struck with joy rather than sadness when she was informed that he “died” in a train wreck.

Both of these short stories are very focused on old-fashioned gender roles and how they affect a woman’s freedom, mental health, and marriage. Although both stories are very different when it comes to plot and setting, the aspirations of both are the same. Both of the women are stuck in marriages that they are not happy in. They both strive for freedom due to the fact that they too have dreams and ambitions just like their husbands do. Women born in the earlier centuries such as the 19th and 20th century just weren’t treated the same as they are today. In both of these stories the women had terrible mental health. Women should never be locked up by their husbands and women should also not find joy in their husband’s death. Either one of these should throw up a red flag that something serious is wrong with their living situation. Gender roles have caused a lot of issues in history with all genders, races, and religions. We can only be thankful for the freedom that was given to us. 
