In Search for Independence and self-fulfillment Essay written by Drew In the last half of the nineteenth century, Victorian ideals still held sway in American society, at least among members of the middle and upper classes. Thus the cult of True Womanhood was still promoted which preached four cardinal virtues for women: piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. Women were considered far more religious than men and, therefore, they had to be pure in heart, mind, …showed first 75 words of 2385 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2385 total…us the nation was not ready to wake up to the truth about feminine passion and independence. Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman saw no happy end to the woman's urge for freedom. The narrator's and Edna's achievement of independence brings them despair rather than fulfillment and happiness. The Yellow Wallpaper and The Awakening are both about the beginnings; they begin a painful process of " bridging two centuries, two worlds, two visions of gender." (Dyer,116)