The Story of an Hour and The Yellow Wallpaper Given what is known about the Victorian era, it is widely known that women were oppressed and held to a standard not seen in the modern-day world. The two short stories The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilmin, and The Story of an Hour, by Kate Chopin articulate themes of what women may have went through in the era. Both stories are written by women who use a limited platform to shear an allegory that shadowed the oppression of all women. In spite of the fact the stories have the similar themes, they are conveyed in two different perspectives to the reader. Both use components of imagery, Symbolism, and Point-of-view to chronicle the overall themes. Costa/Sample First Last ENC 1102 Professor Costa 03/03/2020 Comparison and Contrast Essay Women in the Victorian era were often oppressed by men, bending to their every will without giving it much thought themselves. This theme is expressed throughout the short stories The Story of an Hour, by Kate Chopin, and The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Both stories were written by women who each used their platforms to write an allegory that represented the oppression of all women. Although these two stories portray the same general theme, they vary on their writing techniques to get their messages across to the reader. Both stories use the elements of setting, imagery, and irony in different, and sometimes similar, ways to convey the overall theme. The majority of both stories take place in just a single room of a house, which eludes to the idea that the time spent in that room determines if you will be able to overcome the oppression or not. In “The Story of an Hour” when Mrs. Mallard was made aware of the sudden and tragic death of her husband she broke into tears, but “when the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.” (Chopin, 179) Mrs. Mallard does not reappear out of her room until the very end of the story when she has already gone through her trial and change, having happily overcome her difficulties. Similarly, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator is having symptoms of an unknown illness and is prescribed by her husband, who also happens to be a doctor, bed rest and isolation from people so that she could get the rest that she needed. This conflict in the story caused it to take place majorly in the narrator’s room due to them being confined and locked in there, solidified by the fact that the Costa/Sample “windows are barred” (Gilman, 217). The narrator refuses to leave her room until the very end of the story when she is absolutely forced to and has already gone through her trial and change, not being as fortunate as Mrs. Mallard in the other story because she had gone completely insane from her isolation in that room. Another major element utilized by both authors is the use of imagery in b.

1. The Story of an Hour and The Yellow Wallpaper
Given what is known about the Victorian era, it is widely known
that women were oppressed and held to a standard not seen in
the modern-day world. The two short stories The Yellow
Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilmin, and The Story of an
Hour, by Kate Chopin articulate themes of what women may
have went through in the era. Both stories are written by women
who use a limited platform to shear an allegory that shadowed
the oppression of all women. In spite of the fact the stories have
the similar themes, they are conveyed in two different
perspectives to the reader. Both use components of imagery,
Symbolism, and Point-of-view to chronicle the overall themes.
Costa/Sample
First Last
ENC 1102
Professor Costa
03/03/2020
Comparison and Contrast Essay
Women in the Victorian era were often oppressed by men,
bending to their every will
without giving it much thought themselves. This theme is
expressed throughout the short stories
The Story of an Hour, by Kate Chopin, and The Yellow

2. Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Both stories were written by women who each used their
platforms to write an allegory that
represented the oppression of all women. Although these two
stories portray the same general
theme, they vary on their writing techniques to get their
messages across to the reader. Both
stories use the elements of setting, imagery, and irony in
different, and sometimes similar, ways
to convey the overall theme.
The majority of both stories take place in just a single room of
a house, which eludes to
the idea that the time spent in that room determines if you will
be able to overcome the
oppression or not. In “The Story of an Hour” when Mrs. Mallard
was made aware of the sudden
and tragic death of her husband she broke into tears, but “when
the storm of grief had spent itself
she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow
her.” (Chopin, 179) Mrs.
Mallard does not reappear out of her room until the very end of
the story when she has already
gone through her trial and change, having happily overcome her
difficulties. Similarly, in “The

3. Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator is having symptoms of an
unknown illness and is prescribed by
her husband, who also happens to be a doctor, bed rest and
isolation from people so that she
could get the rest that she needed. This conflict in the story
caused it to take place majorly in the
narrator’s room due to them being confined and locked in there,
solidified by the fact that the
Costa/Sample
“windows are barred” (Gilman, 217). The narrator refuses to
leave her room until the very end of
the story when she is absolutely forced to and has already gone
through her trial and change, not
being as fortunate as Mrs. Mallard in the other story because
she had gone completely insane
from her isolation in that room.
Another major element utilized by both authors is the use of
imagery in both stories to
help solidify the changes that the characters were going
through. In “The Story of an Hour” Mrs.
Mallard stares out of her window and describes everything in
perfect detail, such as “The

4. delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a
peddler was crying his wares. The
notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her
faintly, and countless sparrows
were twittering in the caves. There were patches of blue sky
showing here and there through the
clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west
facing her window.” (Chopin, 179-
180) The use of this imagery suggests that this is the first time
Mrs. Mallard is able to notice
these beautiful things because she is now free from her
husband’s grip to do as she pleases
instead of always listening to him. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Gilman uses her imagery to have
the very opposite effect on the narrator. The narrator
immediately admits to the wallpaper being
the worst she has ever seen before greatly going into detail
about the wallpaper, stating “It is dull
enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to
constantly irritate and provoke
study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a
little distance they suddenly commit
suicide-plunge off at outrages angles, destroy themselves in
unheard of contradictions. The color

5. is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow,
strangely faded by the slow-turning
sunlight.” (Gilman, 217-218). Unlike the positive effect on Mrs.
Mallard in “The Story of an
Hour”, the narrator was obviously very disgusted with the
wallpaper and solidified that with the
extensive description and vulgar interpretations of the
wallpaper.
Costa/Sample
Irony was one of the biggest underlying elements of both
stories, both authors taking full
advantage of it to help build their plot. In “The story of an
Hour” the reader is informed that
“Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble.” (Chopin, 179)
which is later eluded to being
false, she was just depressed from her current circumstances
and was wrongly diagnosed by a
male doctor. The reader and characters are also made to believe
her husband has died, which is
why she thought she was free, but at the very end of the story it
is revealed that the husband was
still alive and this ironically shocks Mrs. Mallard to death.

6. Everyone blamed her death on her
“weak heart” which is even more ironic because she didn’t have
one, this drives the plot forward
because it gets the point across that she was misunderstood the
whole time and everyone
including herself turned a blind eye to it. In “The Yellow
Wallpaper” Gilman uses dramatic irony
to let the reader in on the narrator’s oppression, but the narrator
herself is totally oblivious to it.
Throughout the whole story John is telling the narrator what she
can and can’t do, but the
narrator keeps rationalizing his decisions, she solidifies this by
saying “He is very careful and
loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.”
(Gilman, 217). This use of dramatic
irony makes the reader sympathize for the narrator and her
unwillingness to stand up for what
she wants because she thinks she is being taken care of.
The overall theme of both stories was the oppression of women
by men in the Victorian
era, both of the stories achieving that goal through using
elements of setting, imagery, and irony
to advance the plot and deepen the meaning of their stories.
Although the stories themselves are

7. very different they do a very good job in using those three
elements to get across the same moral
in the story.
Costa/Sample
Bibliography
Chopin, Kate. The Story of an Hour. Backpack Literature, X.J.
Kennedy, Dana Gioia, fifth
edition, 179-180, Pearson, 2016, University of Southern
California.
Gilman, Charlotte. The Yellow Wallpaper. Backpack Literature,
X.J. Kennedy, Dana Gioia, fifth
edition, 217-218, Pearson, 2016, University of Southern
California.