Womens Issues in The Awakening by Kate Chopin, The...

Womens Issues in The Awakening by Kate Chopin, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Souls Belated by Edith Wharton In comparing the three authors and the literary works of women authors Kate Chopin (1850 -1904), The Awakening, Charlotte Perkins Gilmans (1860-1935), The Yellow Wallpaper, and Edith Whartons (1862-1937) Souls Belated, a good number common social issues related to women are brought to light and though subtly pointed out are an outcry against the conventions of the time. In these three stories, which were written between 1899 and 1913, the era was a time in which it seems, that women had finally awaken to realize their social oppression and were becoming rebellious in their pursuit of freedom from†¦show more content†¦They were able to portray women as human beings, rather than as totally self-sacrificing and sanctified women, as was expected of women in that era. The women of today are privileged that there were daring women such as Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It is also fortunate for us, that in the late 1800s to the early part of the 1900s there were women, rich enough to have the luxury of leisure which enabled them write about what they felt were very important issues for women. In Kate Chopins The Awakening and Edith Whartons Souls Belated the two main characters were to me admirably brave, daring, and courageous women. They were women whose souls were belatedly awakened and seemed to have gone through a metamorphoses. These two women find that they no longer desire to live by the imposed social moral convention of the time. They dared to act upon their passion and emotions by opting and daring to live in sin, in order to exercise their own independence and personal freedom; in other words, they refused to live with the public. Though Kate Chopins character, Edna, is portrayed as less than a devoted mother, but in the end, she gives up her life for her children sake. She commits suicide so that in the future, her children would not be the objects of malicious societal gossip because of her infidelities. In Gilmans Yellow Wallpaper the main characters (name not mentioned) motherly