The Yellow Wallpaper and the Story of an Hour
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The idea of imprisonment is examined in the poems “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman, in both of the poems the idea is shown literally, mentally, and physically. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the idea of imprisonment is being used literally, in “The Story of an Hour” its used more mentally. Throughout the essay I will explain my argument of how the idea of imprisonment is used literally and physically in “The Yellow Wallpaper” with her husband actually locking her in a room to help cure her. Then in “The Story of an Hour” the idea of imprisonment is used more mentally by which in the reading it shows her realizing the amount of freedom she has and how before even though her husband never physically did imprison her, he was doing it in more of a mental state.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the imprisonment is literal and physical. I believe this is ironic because her husband wants to help her. He brings her to this Colonial Mansion for the summer on a vacation, but while there he wants to help cure her from her nervous depression. When he brings her to this house it is not how she expected it to be as she said “a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity — but that would be asking too much of fate! Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it. Else, why should it be let so cheaply?” We learn shortly after that her husband John is a physician. John has brought his wife and their family to this house for not only a vacation but to help cure his wife of her nervous depression. How does he want to do this? To help cure her, he thinks it would be best if she stayed in their room for most of the day alone, sleeping or doing nothing. She would only be allowed out of her room for a couple hours a day, but she wouldnt be allowed to write or see people besides her husband, and really not do much except sleep and eat. She is willing to do this for the next 3 months of her vacation but the only one problem she has with it is that in the room she must stay in all day has this horrible wallpaper she cannot stand in anyway. The imprisonment is not just an idea of imprisonment. She is literally left in a room for almost the whole day with nothing to do, and has the things she enjoys taken away from her. It becomes a punishment.
In “The Story of an Hour” the idea of imprisonment is used more mentally, I believe this because in the beginning of the story the women we learn has a heart condition, and that she is married. Soon after she is given the news of the fact that her husband was killed in an accident. At first we hear how devastated she is of this news. The author tells us “she sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, expect when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who