The short stories The Story of an Hour and The Yellow Wallpaper are quite similar in that they illustrate the mental state of married women who feel oppressed and suppressed by their husbands. In ChopinÆs The Story of an Hour, the narrator is shocked to learn of the death of her husband in a railway accident. However, her shock is more from the odd feelings she has upon hearing the news. We are told Mrs. Mallard does not hear the story ôas many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significanceö (Chopin 1). In an odd manner, Mrs. Mallard experiences a sense of freedom and relief upon hearing the news. In Perkins GilmanÆs The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator experiences the same freedom and sense of relief when she rebels against the dictates of her controlling physician husband. However, in both stories the women pay a heavy price for their freedom. Mrs. Mallard will drop dead upon discovering her husband is alive, while that narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper will succumb to madness after she peels the wallpaper off her bedroom walls and bars her husband from the room. The theme in both stories is that domination and oppression of the female soul by males is devastating in its impact.
Mrs. Mallard suffers from a heart ailment, so those that break the news of her husbandÆs death do so with ôgreat careö and as ôgently as possibleö (Chopin 1). This not only reinforces the allegedly ôfragileö nature of women, but it also illustrates the mentality that women in comparison to men are the weaker sex. Yet, Mrs. MallardÆs reaction to this news is far from what one might imagine when a wife finds out her husband has died. Upon hearing the news, Mrs. Mallard does not experience the typical emotions of losing a loved one. Instead, she notices with newfound appreciation that the sky is blue, birds are singing, and something begins to bubble to the surface of her conscious mind.
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