Escaping Your Destiny
In the short stories, The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Story of an Hour, by Kate Chopin and Trifles by Susan Glaspell the characters are alike in the fact that they are trapped in something. Also they are all stories with a feminist view. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the main character, Else, is not only trapped by her post-partum depression, but also trapped physically by her husband. In The Story of an Hour, the main character Louise is trapped by her own thoughts and sadness. In the story Trifles Farmer John Wright has been murdered. While he lay asleep in the middle of the night, someone strung a rope around his neck. And that someone might have been his wife, the quiet and forlorn Minnie Wright.
In The Yellow Wallpaper, Else is suffering from post-partum depression. She says her husband has no regard for her feelings, thoughts, and somewhat downplays her condition.
The Yellow Wallpaper, one of Gilman's most popular...
English: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
English: Signature of American writer Charlotte Pe...Part of the treatment for her depression is that she is not allowed to do any type of physical activity, work, or write, but she thinks these things would help and begins writing in a secret journal that she hides in her bedroom. She starts to write about seeing "rings and things" on the walls. She also writes about bars on the window. She begins to talk about how controlling John is then goes back to the wallpaper. She keeps referring to a "pattern" in the wallpaper but she does not know what it is. She becomes more and more obsessed with the wallpaper and then realizes that the pattern is a woman who is trying to escape. She begins to see a woman in the windows. She attempts to see both windows at the same time to...