Introduction
The life of women on the verge of the 19th and 20th centuries was characterized by their performance as companions for their husbands and families without opportunities for independence. A woman at that time was expected to clean, cook, and raise children; without the chance to be employed with decent payment, she was completely dependent on her husband (Gilman 6-7). Ultimately, a woman’s life revolved around domestic matters, vividly depicted through the themes of confinement in the short stories by feminist writers Chopin, Glaspell, and Stenson. This paper explores how women’s confinement in domestic space was portrayed in short stories at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The context for the paper is supported by the sentiments on women’s economic dependence articulated by Gilman. It is argued that the writers contrasted women’s roles as housekeepers with the freedom they could only observe through a window and not fully experience due to their dependence on husbands.
Women portrayed in short stories
Dependence on a husband as the primary indicator of women’s lack of freedom in the early 20th century is particularly related to economic relations. Indeed, as stated by Gilman, women’s economic contribution was limited to the domestic industry, which constrained their freedom (7). Gilman compares women’s economic confinement with that of a horse in slavery, which “gets his living at the hands of a master” (7). Such a comparison allows for identifying a similar theme of confinement in domestic industry and marriage as conveyed in the short stories by Chopin, Glaspell, and Stenson.
The three stories, “The Jury of Her Peers” by Glaspell, “Story of an Hour” by Chopin, and “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Stenson, exemplify women’s confinement as the main obstacle to their independence and freedom. In each of these stories, the main character’s life in a marriage is impacted by the limits of the domestic space in which they live. Indeed, the anticipation of freedom that Mrs. Mallard in “Story of an Hour” felt once she heard about the death of her husband is paralleled with her imaginative exploration of the world outside her house. As she was standing by the window in her room, she “was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window” (Chopin 2). Mrs. Mallard “breathed a quick prayer” of a happy free life as one breathes the fresh air entering the room through an open window (Chopin 3). Her inability to experience the outer world represents her lack of freedom in the marriage.
The other two stories depict the same theme of confinement, resembling women’s inferiority and dependence on men. In the same manner, Stenson shows her character literally confined in an “atrocious nursery” where “the windows are barred” (2). Her worries do not concern her husband; he claims that her fears were mistaken for “a draught, and shut the window” (Stenson 2). By shutting a window and devaluing the main character’s feelings, her husband demonstrates superiority as a means to impose restrictions on his wife. Similarly, in “The Jury of Her Peers,” the court attorney devalues the domestic role of the accused woman by stating that although “held for murder,” she is “worrying about her preserves” (Glaspell 4). However, being in the kitchen and worrying about the small things that were essential for the domestic space constituted her whole life since she was forbidden from living a free life. Thus, an enclosed space portrayed in the short stories resembles the character’s marriages, which limit their life independence as the walls obstruct their access to freedom.
Conclusion
In summation, the opposition of domestic confinement to tempting freedom glimpsed through a window demonstrates the inequality and even personal tragedy of the women on the verge of the centuries. In all the three short stories, the main characters observed the free life through the windows of their homes without the ability to live it. Thus, the feminist writers metaphorically portrayed late 19th-century marriage as imprisonment in domestic affairs that limited women’s freedom and happiness.
Works Cited
Chopin, Kate. “Story of an Hour,” 1894.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution. Courier Corporation, 1996.
Glaspell, Susan. “The Jury of Her Peers,”1917.
Stenson, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wall-Paper.”