Kate suffers from an "indescribable oppression" (Chopin 8) that fills "her whole being with anguish" (8) that can be traced back to her family and husband. Edna, too, had difficulty bonding with her children. While they were much older than the narrator's child in "The Yellow Wallpaper," Edna's children to not make her more maternal. She struggles with this and we can see that she does not cope with it very well.
For example, she does not feel much angst for leaving her children after moving to the pigeon house.
While she happy to see her children after being separated from them for a week, we do not gather a sense of longing or yearning to back in the home again. In fact, when Edna stands on the verge of suicide, her children do not appear as angels of hope but rather "antagonists who had overcome her; who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul's slavery for the rest of her days" (Chopin 151). Her family cannot pull her out of her depression because they are clearly a cause of it.
Both authors emphasize their character's mental states with symbolism. In "the Yellow Wallpaper," the wallpaper is the most prominent symbol, tearing away from the wall in bits and pieces. It becomes the narrator's prison and, as a result, she sees nothing but death in the images on the paper. The woman she sees in the paper is crawling and creeping around much like the narrator does in her own mind and in her tiny room. The woman "crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over" (Gilman 8) and the narrator does not want anyone else to see...
The woman in the wallpaper becomes the only thing with which she can relate. In "The Awakening," the most powerful symbol is the ocean. Edna enjoys being near the sea because it allows her to "realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her" (Chopin 17). We also know that the sea seduces her in a way that no lover could. We read that it invites Edna's "soul to wonder for a spell in abysses of solitude" where she can wander in "mazes of inward contemplation" (17). The symbolism in each story helps us understand each character in her own environment.
Things are rarely ever what they seem. "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "The Awakening" are two stories that force us to admit this. When dealing with people, we must never lose sight of what they are trying to say to us when they do not speak. The narrator and Edna are not allowed to express themselves completely and they suffer because of that. Each woman is trapped in a cycle of depression that is not addressed because each of them lives in a society that does not take them seriously. They lose because they are not just fighting a mental illness - they are also fighting their husbands, family, and friends that reinforce the absurd notion that they should simply get better.
Works Cited
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York: Bantam Books. 1988.
Perkins-Gilman, Charlotte. "The Yellow Wall-paper." xxx. xxx.
Perkins-Gilman, Charlotte. "Why I Wrote the Yellow Wall-paper." xxx.…
