Women writers constantly try to negotiate their identity in a society that glorifies male opinion. The fact that the protagonists of Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Chopin's “A Pair of Silk Stockings” are married women places both discourses within a patriarchal institutional framework. Immediately a critique of marriage arises and we are forced to examine how women are oppressed, both by patriarchy and by stereotypes imposed on them as mothers and nurturers. It is clear that both stories serve to highlight the plight of women, although whether a solution is proposed remains questionable. Gilman's unnamed protagonist goes mad, while Chopin's “Little Mrs. Sommers” fears returning to the boring routine of a housewife. The conclusions, as such, do not appear to empower women, but suggest the futility of the fight against patriarchy. Even if the madness of Gilman's unnamed protagonist is seen as a form of transcendental sanity as some critics have suggested, how powerful is it for women to be portrayed as mad? Furthermore, her transcendence – if interpreted as such – is temporary, as she may be admitted to an asylum for further treatment. Even consumerism is only a temporary relief for Mrs. Sommers's worldly existence, because sooner or later her money will run out. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The fact that both women are married is an important consideration in this analysis. Marriage inscribes patriarchy in the narrative, because it imposes on the characters the identity of wife and husband. Immediately the stereotypes of each label are invoked: the wife is submissive, caring and sacrificial while the husband is aggressive, clinical and self-centered. In both stories, women are silenced and powerless in their marriages. Gilman's protagonist has no name and is pampered like a newborn while it is clear that Mrs. Sommers' life revolves around caring for her children's needs, with little regard for her own. By not giving the protagonist a name and emphasizing that her husband and brother were both “high-ranking” doctors (115), Gilman places the story within a patriarchal structure. As Karen Ford notes, «John is identified first in relation to the patriarchy and only later in relation to his wife» (310), and the doctor is «the man par excellence» (310), therefore «the epitome of male discourse » (310). For Mrs. Sommers, her desires are usually repressed, and the story depicts what happens when she succumbs to her desire. Mrs. Sommers is the embodiment of the perfect wife, with her children as a source of pride and excitement. Her life also exemplifies the life of all women who become housewives and dedicate their lives to their family because this is expected of them. Both stories are not that different in that they describe the marriage in chronological order: Gilman's protagonist, if she "recovered," would end up living the life of Mrs. Sommers. Through marriage, both stories reveal the oppressive force of patriarchy that reduces them to what Paula Treichler calls “domestic slavery” (64). In both stories, the protagonists devise their own ways to escape the patriarchy. For Gilman, we are immediately introduced to the protagonist's private thoughts and become complicit in her writing in her “dead paper” (115) which she calls her diary. We are given insight into his struggles to build an identity that is not imposed by society. Elaine Showalter recognizes that writing is a powerful tool of expression for peoplefeminists, even if they continue to do so within a patriarchal culture (Belsey and Moore 6), and this is exactly what Gilman tries to show in his story. The language of patriarchy synthesized by the language of medicine has, as Treichler observes, “considerable power over what […] reality must be now” (65). Once John declares that he is suffering from “temporary nervous depression” (115), she is confined in prison to the room with the yellow wallpaper. Through his writing, we are faced with hideous wallpapers with “glittering, gaudy patterns that commit every artistic sin” (117). Through his diary, the wallpaper comes to life and takes on human form: “a broken neck and two bulbous eyes” (119). It slowly becomes clear to her that the model is "like a woman who bends and crawls here and there" (122). At this point, it is crucial to note that as John's voice becomes more absent when he leaves the protagonist alone, the woman behind the background takes on a more prominent form, and Treichler notes that at this point "the figure becomes clearer to her , to the point that he can reach it from behind the paper and literally act within it” (67). The figure's visibility is a measure of his power through his writing. As the figure becomes clearer, she becomes quieter, and her husband sees this reticence as an indication of her improved well-being. This suggests a fallacy of privileged male medical observation and potentially undermines it as the patriarchal voice is revealed as disempowering for women. Despite the revelatory potential of writing, Carol Neely warns that “when women's speech is reduced to the level of style alone, attempts to isolate or prescribe stylistic features that are or should be peculiar to female speech fail […]” (315) . For Gilman's protagonist, her writing is atypical of patriarchy. While John advocates "self-control" (116), she states that "it makes me very tired" (116). While John condemns “imaginative power” and “fantasy” (118), she deciphers “many women” (126) who climb through the wallpaper pattern. Identifying a specific feminine language carries the danger of excluding women from typical patriarchal discourse and placing them in the category of the “Other,” thus reinforcing the binary opposition established in the first place by patriarchy. Females are condemned to perpetual "otherness" (319) as males continue to be logical and balanced, while females continue to be the opposite: illogical. Mrs. Sommers experiences a momentary reprieve as she indulges in consumerism. While Chopin seems to extol her as "she who knew the value of business" (153), she also mockingly implies that she is wasting her time "staying for hours advancing inch by inch towards the desired object which was selling below cost" (153) . When the story finds Mrs. Sommers pampering herself with "soft, shiny, luxurious things" (153), then indulging in a proper meal and comedy before culminating with her in a cable car ride home and experiencing a "powerful longing ” (156) that the race would “go on with her forever” (156), we immediately interpret Chopin's consumerist approach as a temporary reprieve. However, I think you are suggesting that financial independence is the key to freedom. The story begins by painting a picture of Mrs. Sommers' financial prudence as "the question of investments was one that concerned her greatly" (152) and "it was during the quiet hours of the night when she lay awake, turning over plans in her mind. that she seemed to see clearly the path towards a correct and judicious use of money" (152); the narrator then mentions “‘daysbest' that Mrs. Sommers had known before she even thought of being Mrs. Sommers" (152). Unlike Jane Austen's women who saw marriage as a solution to future stability and happiness, Gilman and Chopin foreground marriage as suffocating and regressive. She offers a reconciliation for Gilman's solution of an alternative discourse of women by quoting Virginia Woolf: "To create this alternative discourse [...] they must have 500 pounds and a room of their own, that is, financial, social independence. and psychological" (318). Her approach merges the solutions of Chopin and Gilman and implies that women have to be sufficient, therefore independent of the patriarch, before their writing can be taken seriously as a collective female voice. Although the approach of Neely is reminiscent of some contemporary feminists, it is too idealistic and parochial. Woolf's hypothesis places females in a one-dimensional construction that mirrors males. In essence, her underlying claim is that women must appropriate the male definition of success in order to be seen as such. His suggestion reminds me of a quote from American writer Timothy Leary, who postulates that "women who seek to be equal to men lack ambition." John's insistence that his wife not write, an activity that promotes thought and intellect, suggests that he must continually make his wife feeble-minded so as to remain unchallenged. Mary Jacobus further explains that “otherness is domesticated [and] made secure through narcissism” (69). John's fainting at the end is evidence of the vulnerability of his ego. Treichler interprets this as the "unperturbed husband" fainting because he is taken aback by the "dramatic force of his own freedom" (67). It further expands on the protagonist's triumph as she "followed her own logic, her own perceptions, [and] her own plans to this final scene in which madness is seen as a kind of transcendent sanity" (67). I am inclined to agree with Treichler's reading of language as Gilman's protagonist "changes the terms in which women are represented in language and extends the conditions under which women will speak" (74). The fact that both stories end inconclusively denotes women's ability to embody contradictions and ambiguities. This, in my opinion, is what makes women different from men. While male identity is stable and fixed, female identity can be negotiated and renegotiated, just as Gilman's protagonist constantly tries to interpret wallpaper, first as an "artistic sin" (117), then as a face with “still eyes” (119), “mushroom” (123), and finally as women trying to escape (126). Mrs. Sommers also embodies contradictions when she is a poor woman surrounded by wealthy people, but creates "no surprise" (155) with her appearance. As Treichler astutely observes, “Woman is at once passive and active, subject and object, sane and insane” (74). It is impractical to compete with men on their platform, because it only supports the binaries upheld by the patriarchy. Instead, it will be more productive to engage in a discourse that accepts the intrinsic duality of women, because in doing so gender boundaries are blurred and patriarchy is displaced. "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "A Pair of Silk Stockings" essentially protest against male exclusivity. Both stories highlight the oppression of women through the male institution embodied by marriage. The inconclusive resolution of both stories suggests possibilities for change. Both stories criticize marriage and portray it as oppressive and disempowering for women. In order for the lyrics.2-1>