Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” are both central texts in feminists literature. Largely and creatively portraying the mental struggle of female figures, they stand out among other comparable short pieces. While both authors place emphasis on the psychology description of the protagonists, Mrs. Mallard and a new mother, they differ in the way of giving insight to the inner world of both heroines and the discovery of women’s self-assertion.

Chopin explores Mrs. Mallard’s psychological state mainly by virtue of the changing of the settings. When informed of the “death” of her husband in the living room, Mrs. Mallard “wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment”. However, after she entered her own room and faced the open window, she got relief from the “new spring life” which symbolized the bright future as a “widow”. In her private space, she sensed the rebirth of her heart and had a strong desire to get rid of the unbalanced marriage in which she was tightly controlled by her husband. Unfortunately, Mrs. Mallard’s desire to free herself was ruined as soon as she left her private space. The return of her husband greatly depressed Mr. Mallard and caused her death. The author uses the changing of the settings as an effective way to imply the changing of the protagonist’s psychological state. Concrete images such as rooms, trees and sparrows serve as symbols to give insight to Mrs. Mallard’s complicated awakening process.

Gilman examines a new mother’s inner world with stream of consciousness. As the oppressive husband pushed his wife from depression into insanity, the reader has access to the heroine’s deliria amid a series of perplexing behavior. The anonymous female narrator discovered the chaos of the wallpaper’s patterns, which reflects her chaotic mind. Then the woman also revealed her feelings of the yellow color and the yellow smell, which suggests that her state of mind grew choppier. The protagonist’s delusions of the creeping female figure on the wallpaper by the moonlight and her later identifying with the woman imply the climax of her insanity and her unconscious or subconscious desire to liberate herself from masculine oppression as well. The application of stream of consciousness successfully contributes to the story’s effectiveness because it not only highlights the narrator’s mental condition with the choppy narrative style of short sentences, but also fits the identity of the protagonist as a derange person well. This literature technique leaves the reader with tremendous opportunities to look within the narrator’s heart free of obstacles.

The different ways Chopin and Gilman employ psychology description have some association with the traits of characters and the ideas the authors want to communicate. While Chopin focuses on the housewife’s struggle to selfhood, Gilman condemns the paternalistic society from a madwoman’s perspective. After all, both writers’ proper use of psychology description enhances their stories’ effectiveness.