The Sun Also Rises and The Yellow Wallpaper

The female narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" and the lead female character in The Sun Also Rises are two extremely different personalities, highlighting extreme responses to gender-based expectations of behavior in American culture. One submits completely to male power; the other defies it just as completely.

The unnamed narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper", despite her own contradictory opinions, acquiesces to the expectations of the men in her life who function as authorities, as parents almost. She knows that her husband's prescribed treatment for her "nervous condition" is not helping; she even knows that she is, in fact, getting worse. Despite her knowledge, she cannot break free of the constraints put upon her by a society which removes personal power from the hands of women and places it directly into the hands of the men in her life. The narrator is at the mercy of her husband and brother.

In The Sun Also Rises, Brett, conversely, defies the expectations of her gender, adopts masculine traits, clothing, and hair styles, and continuously acts according to her own preferences. She is in charge of her own life in a way the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is not and cannot be. Most of the criticism that focuses on Brett as a “bitch” looks primarily at "the ways in which she dominates the various male characters" (Yu). This domination is quite opposite from the complete and utter submission of "The Yellow Wallpaper's" narrator. She is not pliable or content but she is compliant; Brett, however, "unlike most women of the nineteenth century...is always in control of her surroundings" (Marney). I'm not quite sure how much happiness Brett's agency gave her though; although certainly more than the unnamed narrator who just goes batshit insane.

Only 34 years separate these two stories. Do you think gender expectations changed that drastically from 1892 to 1926 or are these each extremes of their time?