iting. The very first words Chopin ascribes to Leonce Pontellier point out his paternalistic view of his wife: "What folly! To bathe at such an hour in such heat!...You are burnt beyond recognition..." (Chopin, 44). Clearly, Edna Pontellier's husbands looks at her as if she is his property. The reader comes to see Leonce as a fiercely conventional, respectable, and conservative man. However, he is by no means portrayed as a tyrant by Chopin: he is kind, lovable, but chiefly concerned with money and showing off that money. There are three scenes in the novel which show the oppressive nature of Leonce as well as the development of the enormous gulf between Edna and her husband. In the first scene, in the bedroom, after being scolded by Leonce about not being a good mother, Edna responds by crying. Later, on the porch, she responds with defiance, refusing to come in to sleep, according to her husband's wishes. Finally, in New Orleans, after a fight with her husband, Edna violently throws off her ring, and reacts with rage. These scenes, as well as the journey into the sea at the end of the novel suggest that she has become awakened to the oppressive nature of her husband, and that of the institution of marriage in general. The Yellow Wall-Paper is also a story which shows the anatomy of an oppressive marriage. The narrator of the story encodes the rage that might be felt by a woman who is forced into idleness by the scripts of her husband and the medical establishment. Simply because the narrator does not cherish the joys of married life and motherhood, and therefore, is in violation of the rigid code of true womanhood, she is classified with a nervous condition, and sentenced to passivity. The narrator clearly feels a hostile rage against her husband, and the ending of the story confirms this deep-bedded anger. Under the cover story, the compliance of a woman to her husband, is the story of a heroine rebelling against the social construct...
