A paper that sparks an emotion is always notably great.

A paper that 
conveys character development is a good find. But when it leaves you wondering 
what was the reason for the development, how it came to be, and what 
connections you can make with another text, you dive deeper into understanding 
an idea made intentional or unintentional by the author depicted by the reader. 
When you analyze the details, you begin to create ideas of the texts that evoked 
an emotion out of you. In class, no one expected Mrs. Mallard to die, but the 
leading events help put the puzzle pieces together. In another text, no one would 
have guessed that the speaker and the woman in the wallpaper would merge 
together to be whole, to be one. In this paper, we will examine and review how 
these two eerie, shocking, and uncanny stories connect and tie into a deeper 
thought. 
In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, Mrs. Mallard is heart sick and 
receives the news of her husband's death. To which she responds in a striking, 
heart breaking, and wretched grief. She wails out her emotions of sorrow, 
suffering, pain, and lamentation. She mourns the death of her husband until she 
starts to notice something that’s been calling out for her attention. However, she 
tries to conceal it, to hide it and avoid it by resisting. But she can’t seem to escape 
it. And although she feared it from the start, it would turn out to be what would 
free her. 
In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator is 
shown as sick and moves to a remote area for the meantime while she recovers. 
When she arrives at the house, she finds the room she’s staying at to be 
distasteful due to the yellow wallpaper and immediately hates the room’s 
appearance because it wasn’t what she had wanted. She begins to pay attention 
to the wallpaper and starts noticing new things to the same wallpaper. As the 
story progresses, the narrator starts to become like the woman she sees trapped 
within the wallpaper. The start of the narrator noticing the wallpaper becomes 
what could help her find herself. 
The resemblance of both stories are that the leading characters are both 
females who are known to be sick by others. They both are attracted to 
something that appears out of the nothing based on the setting, and that changes 
their lives from then on. Both women only experience it when they’re alone. 
Thus, isolation makes one ponder on their freedom. These patterns seen 
throughout both texts can lead to the idea and theme that when you are in 
solitude, you begin your journey to freedom and escape. This is because both 
women noticed something that called out to them and their attention and were 
alone on the verge of freedom. Let us examine both women’s journeys to escape. 
 The event that triggered Mrs. Mallard was acquiring the news of her dead 
husband. The story starts with saying, “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted 
with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the 
news of her husband’s death” (Chopin 1). This shows an overview of the main 
character to not be well and seen as unprepared to know about the recent events. 
As the reader begins to sympathize with the feelings of grief, Mrs. Mallard 
overcomes her grief already as the text states, “When the storm of grief had spent 
itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her” 
(Chopin 1). The storm being over shows that there’s something deeper coming up 
ahead that will overcome the grief because it wasn’t enough to linger over her. 
Mrs. Mallard, now recently widowed, is already alone and by herself instead of 
getting comforted by others. Her loneliness then sincerely reveals what’s really 
going on with her. The setting is described as “patches of blue sky showing here 
and there through the clouds…gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those 
patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a 
suspension of intelligent thought” (Chopin 1). The setting is important here 
because it catches the attention of Mrs. Mallard and it sets a contrast between the 
events of her husband’s death and the bright blue sky with clouds. The bright 
blue sky transmits an idea that changes Mrs. Mallard’s perspective in her new life 
now. 
Although, not all great things come easily. The first general reaction to 
something new is to reject, dislike, and disagree with it because it’s unknown 
territory. The author introduces this new idea by writing, “There was something 
coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully…it was too subtle and elusive 
to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the 
sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air” (Chopin 1). Although the thought 
didn’t invade or intrude, Mrs. Mallard had her guard up as it was ‘creeping’ and 
getting closer to where she was. The subtleness of the creeping coming to her 
through everything shows that Mrs. Mallard couldn’t escape no matter what she 
did. Yet the way she interacts with it is quite interesting. “When she abandoned 
herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over 
and over under her breath” ‘free, free, free” (Chopin 2). The fact that Mrs. 
Mallard had to lose and abandon herself shows that she had to leave everything 
behind in order to accept what was coming. This also can be interpreted that she 
had to have a fresh start in order to find herself again and attain what she 
needed. The word ‘free’ explains that before, Mrs. Mallard was restrained, 
limited, and bound in her life of entrapment. But in her solitude, she expresses 
something hidden that was inside of her all along that had to be released so that 
she could find herself and attain her freedom. 
 Her body accepts the sense of being free literally. Mrs. Mallard no longer 
faces pain or affliction. Instead, “Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood 
warmed and relaxed every inch of her body” (Chopin 2). It is weird that her body 
feels the tension go away and she starts to relax as she welcomes the feeling and 
surge of liberty. Embracing the feeling, Mrs. Mallard’s “fancy was running riot 
along those days ahead of her” (Chopin 2). Because of her newfound freedom, 
Mr.s Mallard sees endless possibilities for her life and begins her journey to 
freedom. She leaves the life of grieving and starts to look forward to living her 
life. Although it was within her reach, she dies before she can begin her life of 
freedom. 
The narrator in the second story is also sick. She is introduced as weak 
minded and is meant to be under specific care in the new setting. She knows this 
fact and admits of taking many medications so that she recovers. She states, “So I 
take phosphates or phosphites--whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, 
and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to ‘work’ until I am well again” 
(Gilman 1). This fact makes it seem as if the narrator’s life is already in shambles 
and needs an escape. Hence, the temporary move to the house. The narrator does 
not know the medications she takes and possibly doesn’t know her sickness nor 
the cause. Her husband takes care of her and that implements her to do as she’s 
told. The text says, “but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the 
least. He says that with my imaginative power…a nervous weakness like mine is 
sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies” (Gilman 3). The narrator has a mind 
that doesn’t lack imagination and it will eventually figure out that it craves 
escape from her troubled life. 
The narrator grows a hatred for the yellow wallpaper in the room she’s in 
and with each passing day, she despises the wallpaper more and more until she 
can’t stand to ignore it anymore. The narrator begins to examine her setting and 
focuses on the complexity of the yellow wallpaper. The narrator states, “There 
are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that 
outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day” (Gilman 5). The secrecy of 
the wallpaper shows that the setting has shifted for the narrator and that there’s 
something more to the wallpaper than what’s on the surface. She is able to see 
something out of nothing and that introduces the narrator to find herself. There 
appears to be someone trapped within the wallpaper and the narrator can’t help 
but notice and observe the actions of the trapped being. The narrator describes it 
“like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind the pattern” (Gilman 6). 
This entrapped woman is significant for the narrator because she used to hate the 
wallpaper and now she is attracted to what’s there. The narrator sees that “it 
creeps so slowly, and always comes in by one window or another…lay there for 
hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did 
move together or separately” (Gilman 6). This creeping around displays that the 
woman behind the wallpaper is always trying to go somewhere and the narrator 
follows her direction with her eyes.  
When you are similar to someone in qualities and characteristics, you can’t 
always see it right away. The narrator claims, “I didn’t realize for a long time 
what the thing was that showed behind…but now I am quite sure it is a woman…I 
fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still” (Gilman 7). The narrator tries to 
understand the woman behind the wallpaper and what she does because it has 
caught her attention. The narrator takes it further and starts interacting with the 
woman. “As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and 
shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook, I shook 
and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper” 
(Gilman 9). The shaking and the pulling represents the teamwork among them 
and how they try to help each other. Something to notice is that the narrator 
refers to them both as we. The use of this phrase shows that the narrator has now 
become similar to the woman inside the wallpaper. She later says, “But I am here, 
and no person touches this paper but me,--not alive (Gilman 9). What the 
narrator used to detest, is now what she wants to have all to herself. 
The selfishness prompts the narrator to be in tune with the woman until 
they merge together. The narrator creates a plan and states, “I've got a rope up 
here that even Jennie did not find. If that woman does get out, and tries to get 
away, I can tie her…But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope ” 
(Gilman 10). The narrator is becoming the woman in the yellow wallpaper 
because she starts by saying that she will capture the woman if she wants to 
escape and then transitions to saying that she came out of the wallpaper and now 
she is tied to the rope. This shows that the woman and the narrator are becoming 
one person and transforming into the same body with the same line of reasoning 
as they are both tied. 
By the end of the story, the narrator is now the woman and there is no 
notable difference. The narrator thinks to herself, “I suppose I shall have to get 
back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard! It is so pleasant to 
be out in this great room and creep around as I please” (Gilman 10). This shows 
that the hated wallpaper has now become the narrator’s home as she plans on 
going [back] inside the wallpaper later on. She prefers to creep everywhere 
instead just like the woman she saw in the wallpaper. What the narrator was 
watching the woman do before, she is now repeating the actions herself. With 
every interaction the narrator has with the wallpaper, she embodies the woman 
and says, “I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder. 
‘I've got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the 
paper, so you can't put me back’” (Gilman 11). This shows her escape to freedom 
because she has evolved from just being the sick mother and wife, she finds 
herself to be free from her husband and the life she lived. She attempts to be free 
by making a path for herself through the tearing and ripping of the wallpaper.  
The patterns in both stories are the women noticing the creeping of 
something in the setting that would allow them to escape. Whether it be a 
thought, a word, or a person of imagination, it would help them encounter and 
find their freedom and escape. Both women reject such a notion to start and then 
they find themselves to be compelled to pay attention once they’re alone. They 
then find their freedom waiting for them and take the plunge.