Comparing 'The Yellow Wallpaper And A Jury Of Her Peers'

In addition, her choice of killing was to the neck with a rope as is similar to the way Mr. Wright killed her pet bird by wrecking its neck. Figuratively in this story, the bird is Mrs. Wright therefore, her killing the bird meant that she was close or already had killed Mrs. Wright’s true personality. The thought of this is what made Mrs. Wright rage vigorous from her cage as the thought of the constant oppression and the murder of her pet that influence her to reach for the rope. This scene is what drove Mrs. Wright to insanity as the constant nagging of abusive behavior and isolation is what made her leave her cage and remove the problem that was impeding her escape to

“A Jury of Her Peers” is a story that is thriving with symbolism throughout the story. Although, amongst these are a few that stand out more than the others. The most expressive symbol is the quilt that the women wish to bring to Minnie Wright while she is in jail so that she can work on it. The second symbol is the songbird who was killed by Minnie Wright’s husband, John Wright. These symbols, although small, have a meaning much larger when you stop to truly ponder them.

Susan Glaspell’s short story, “A Jury of Her Peers” is full of symbolism, which is portrayed through the bird in the story. The story takes place in a house that is set far back and is a lonely place. With the story being written in the 1920’s the attitude men have towards women is by far noticeable throughout the story with them being doubted or looked down upon. There is a murder scene that is being investigated with the wife of the murdered man as the number one suspect. The men in the story are looking in all the wrong places, where the women looked in the one spot to find the one clue that would close the entire case.

The hidden meaning is the lack of affection and passion that exists between a husband and the wife. Since their marriage more than 20 years ago, lack of sisterhood and interaction between Minnie Wright and her neighbors leads to her isolation. The miser nature John Wright sows discord and lack of trust with his wife leading to a loveless marriage. Sisterhood would manifest by sharing of sorrows among the women and assisting each other to avoid

In the late 1800s, nearly all women were viewed as subservient, inferior, second class females that lived their lives in a patriarchal and chauvinist society. Women often had no voice, identity, or independence during that time period. Moreover, women dealt with the horrors of social norms and the gender opposition of societal norms. The primary focus and obligation for a woman to obtain during the 1800s was to serve her husband and to obey to anything he said. Since women were not getting the equality, freedom, or independence that they desired, Kate Chopin, an independent-minded female American novelist of the late 1800s expressed the horrors, oppressions, sadness, and oppositions that women of that time period went through.

In Charlotte Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” she tells a horrific ghost story about symptoms of the rest cure. The “rest cure” was a treatment developed by Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell who restricted women of intellectual stimuli and condemned them to a domestic life to help their postpartum recovery. After being a victim of this treatment, Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Careful attention to the use of Gilman’s symbols in her short story allows the reader to analyze some of the themes concerning feminism and societal misogyny. Foreshadowing throughout, Gilman uses the house, the writing, and the wallpaper as symbols to show how man’s use of the “rest cure” limit women in society and offers that the solution to this issue is to persistently tear away at man’s injustice.

A dead bird, a dead man, a jailed wife, and five people to investigate such things. In “A Jury of Her Peers” in order to find the guilty culprit, there was a need to find a motive. The men would spend all day searching for the reason someone would murder the Mr. Wright, and so would the women. When the women finally did find a motive, they would hide it from the men. They had the right to do so because they themselves had felt the same way Mrs. Wright did, the men were being disrespectful, and the women were dismissed from the men’s sides to look upon things with no significance.

Rhetorical Analysis: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings In her memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelo commemorates and admires strong independent black women and strives to become a well-educated woman herself. Through the use of visual imagery, Angelou describes Mrs. Flowers as a refined black woman to convey to the audience a feeling of pride and recognition for all sophisticated black women and a sense of empathy for Maya. Maya compares Mrs. Flowers to the “women in English novels” who had the luxury to sit “in front of roaring fireplaces” and drink “tea incessantly from silver trays” (93). The visual description of the “fireplace” and “tea” demonstrates to the reader the value that white women have in this society.

Wright it is easy to tell that she is not at all upset about her husband’s death. When being asked about the situation she “laughed and pleated her skirt” (4). Mrs. Wright is compared to a bird that is found later in the story. The bird was found in a pretty box with marks around its neck. Hale and Peters say that the death of her bird would have been her motive if she actually was her husband’s murderer, but the author utilizes the bird and its broken cage to be a comparison to Mrs. Wright’s life.

In both The Story of an Hour and Hills Like White Elephants, the authors Kate Chopin and Ernest Hemingway describe women and the desire to express themselves and be free and how men influence their decision making. Women strive for a sense of freedom and independence and have the yearning to convey themselves freely. In Kate Chopin’s and Ernest Hemmingway’s stories, the authors suggest the two female main characters in their stories feel suppressed for liberty. Louise Mallard in The Story of an Hour is sick and very lonely. She is

Madness can drive any seemingly rational person to perform completely irrational and potentially deadly actions. Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Susan Glaspell both observe the effects of madness in their respective fictional short stories. Gilman’s work, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is a first person short story in which madness is the central theme throughout. The narrator, who is also the protagonist, is driven into insanity after being prescribed the “rest cure” from her husband; her descent into madness is apparent as the story goes on. Glaspell’s work, “Jury of Her Peers,” is a third person short story in which madness acts as a secluded theme. In this story, Minnie Wright, the protagonist who is never present, murders her husband. Her drastic

The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin and the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Stetson were both written by women to express how they were treated in their time period. Both of these stories were criticized because they challenged the belief that a woman should not be just a docile wife. These two pieces of literature utilized symbolic imagery, repetition, and dramatic irony to convey the common theme shared that women are opressed by the standards of society. In Chopin's Story of an Hour, Mrs. Mallard sees the outside world through the only window in her room.

This shows a balance between gender roles, as well as the embracing progressive changes within culture and society. In the story “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin, a third-person omniscient narrator, relates how Mrs. Louise Mallard, the protagonist, experiences the euphoria of freedom rather than the grief of loneliness after hearing about her husband’s death. Later, when Mrs. Mallard discovers that her husband, Mr. Brently Mallard, still lives, she realizes that all her aspiration for freedom has gone. The shock and disappointment kills Mrs. Mallard.

The topic I chose to conduct my research on is the short story “The Story of an Hour”, by Kate Chopin. While reading this story the deeper meaning may not be initially apparent, but after some careful analyzation it is clear what led to Mrs. Mallard’s demise. I have chosen to conduct my research on “The Story of an Hour” because I previously studied it in my Intro to Fiction course last semester and it’s impactful message stood out. The deeper message being communicated through “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is how oppression by patriarchal forces hinders female independence.

These themes can be clearly seen in the short stories Chopin’s “The Story Of An hour”, Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and Hurston’s “Sweat”. These pieces of literature strongly portray how women are seen in instances