While women have achieved equality along with political and social independence in many ways over the past century, contemporary feminist movements continue to blossom as gender expectations and stereotypes remain deeply embedded in our culture. Today and in the past, feminist notions about the social norms that limit women’s possibilities have yearned for expression and have found this through various artistic outlets.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Story of An Hour by Kate Chopin, and the 1944 Film Gaslight are three artistic works that relay feminist themes in a unique way. These three works differ in certain aspects, but all ultimately embody the same underlying theme of the oppression and liberation. While reflecting many similarities, these three works diverge in a few core areas, particularly in the artistic avenues and literary techniques these feminist notions are forwarded through.
Gaslight stands alone as a film, whereas The Yellow Wallpaper and The Story of An Hour share their status as short stories, though differing in the literary methods employed. The Yellow Wallpaper embodies characteristics of the gothic horror genre of literature, realism, and also acts as a social and political allegory about the status and roles of women. The Story of An Hour was also crafted in a realist fashion, as these stories both portray the atmosphere of the time as it actually was, and not as it should be or had been in times past.
These stories share realist trends, but the basic plot outline, setting, and point of view differ wildly. Despite the differences in the construction of these works, they all hinge on the same fundamental feminist ideas. The theme of oppression is central to all three of these works, although they differ in the approaches that are used to convey it. An important part of the story line shared by both Gaslight and The Yellow Wallpaper is absent in The Story of An Hour.
These works spend a large portion illuminating the dysfunctional and oppressive relationship between the protagonist and her husband, and both stories integrate the concept that their oppressive husbands have led them to believe that they are mentally unwell. This distorted belief system implanted in the protagonists of these stories that they are ill or in some other way incapable of functioning appropriately in daily life leads them, initially, to surrender to their husbands control.
In Gaslight, the protagonist Paula speaks of no longer dreaming or experiencing fear since she has been with her husband. He is seen to have saved her, yet what he has really done is robbed her; he has robbed her fears and therefore her opportunity to face them with courage, to grow from them, and to discover freedom and empowerment as a result; he has extinguished her unique dreams and talents, and manipulated them to his benefit.
The narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper experiences this same misfortune; she is hemmed in with rules dictated by her husband, and forbidden to write or pursue creative endeavors through which she finds relief. The Story of An Hour also encompasses these ideas, though it is never directly outlined as it
is in the other works; The Story of An Hour does not concentrate on describing the nature of the relationship between the main character Louise and her husband, but rather implies it and forces the reader to imagine it through the emotional response elicited after she is informed of her husbands death.
When she finally releases the words building within, the resounding “free, free, free” speaks volumes about the oppressive dynamic of the relationship, which had until this point been unclear. In exalted relief she begins to dream of all the possibilities for her future, realizing it is now hers to navigate as it is no longer coursed by the oppressive will of her husband. The aura of oppression surrounding these women is soon to be mutually transformed as liberation takes its place in each of these three works.
In The Story of An Hour with the news of her husband’s transition, Louise feels she is finally relea