Essay on Common Threads in Yellow Wallpaper and Story of an Hour

Common Threads in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Story of an Hour      Ã‚  Ã‚   In her article "Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper,'" as it appeared in The Forerunner (1913), Charlotte Perkins Gilman candidly reveals her personal story of mental illness and her subsequent journey to wellness after she rejected the "expert" advice of her physician. She retells the story, with some embellishments, in her short story "The Yellow Wallpaper." Her own nervous breakdown and prescribed "rest cure," popular at the time, brought her close to "utter mental ruin." With some help from a friend, and using what resources were left to her, she began to write again, intending to use this story as a means of saving others from being driven crazy. "The Yellow Wallpaper" was published in May 1892, amid a flurry of rejections and protestations. Nevertheless, her story has been told, and I think there are many women who can relate to what she has experienced, to varying degrees.    Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, in "A Feminist Reading of Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper'" (818), identify the specialist as S. Weir Mitchell, a famous "nerve specialist" at that time. Gilman was forbidden to write until she was well, which, of course, was worse for her than her postpartum depression. The comparison in the story of "rings and things" in the nursery parallel feelings of being "locked away from creativity," and the gate at the top of the stairs in her upper story bedroom may be symbolic of her imprisonment.    In her short story, the enforced confinement prescribed by her physician husband brought her to a realization that she was imprisoned not only physically, but also in her mind and in her will. Ultimately he would not dominate her, and she ref... ... of dramatic irony. No one but the reader knew what heights Louise soared to and what depths of despair she plummeted to. That this story made such a big impact on me in only two pages shows how great a writer Kate Chopin really is. Works Cited and Consulted Bender, Bert.   Short Story Criticism.   Vol. 8.   Ed. Thomas Votteler.   Detroit:   Gale Research Inc., 1991. 64-65. Chopin, Kate.   â€Å"The Story of an Hour.†Ã‚   Literature:   Reading, Reacting, Writing. 3rd Ed.   Ed.   Laurie Kirszner and Stephen Mandell.   Fort Worth:   Harcourt Brace, 1997. 70-72. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins.   â€Å"The Yellow Wall-paper.†Ã‚   Literature: Reading, Reacting,Writing.   3rd Ed.   Ed. Laurie Kirszner and Stephen Mandell.   Fort Worth:   Harcourt Brace, 1997. 160-172. Shumaker, Conrad.   Short Story Criticism.   Vol. 13.   Ed.   David Segal.   Detroit:   Gale Research Inc., 1993.   164-170