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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Female Liberation In The Awakening And “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, Kevin Chen '10
Female Liberation In The Awakening And “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, Kevin Chen '10
2010 Spring Semester
Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” both initially published in 1899, present strikingly similar stories of the plight of women in society. Both texts adopt a markedly feminist bias, narrated from the point of view of a female protagonist who wrests with the restrictive conventions of a misogynistic society before finally breaking free through separation from the thinking world, via suicide in The Awakening and insanity in “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” Some would argue that the women themselves are flawed, through either mental instability or rampant libido, and thus the stories are skewed through the eyes …
The Possibility Of Female Autonomy In The Awakening And “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, Liana Nicklaus '10
The Possibility Of Female Autonomy In The Awakening And “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, Liana Nicklaus '10
2010 Spring Semester
Both The Awakening by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman present female main characters pursuing individual autonomy. At first, it would appear that both of these characters gain their freedom in the course of their respective stories. In The Awakening, Edna is able to escape from her husband into a new house, and pursue romantic interests with other men, and at the end of “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” the protagonist exclaims, “I’ve got out at last!” (Gilman 20). However, there are several elements in each piece which hint that liberation is not truly achievable. In actuality, societal …