Woman’s Role and Man’s Suppression

Inherited ideology has traditionally constructed men as the holder of power within our society. Women have been treated as second class citizens with neither the legal rights nor the respect of their male counterparts. Culture has significantly contributed to these gender roles by conditioning women to accept their subordinate status while encouraging young men to lead and control. Most feminist criticisms contend that literature either supports the society’s inherited structure or provides a social criticism in order to change these hierarchies. Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” illustrates the transformation of a health, young, woman lead to the brink of hysteria due to her suppressive husband; likewise, Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” depicts the flood of emotions once one as escaped a controlling relationship, while at the same time ironically showing the doom a woman face when placed back into the destruction.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” present...