The early 1900's was a time when women were considered to be silent figures and feminist ideas were in full swing. One might say that women were thought only to be good for reproducing heirs to family wealth, thus leaving some women with a train of thought to do just that, and allow themselves be bound by the chains of society. "So long as their universal business is private housework they remain, industrially, at the level of private domestic hand labor, ... servants of the other sex." (Gilman, 1916). The Narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the epitome of a woman who has a child, and is bound by her husband to a house that used to be an asana asylum, causing her to eventually become insane. Insanity was not alien to the people of the early to mid 1900's along with religious piety causing for further suppression of the female sex. However, not everyone was doomed to wind up in the same situation, for some women were strong enough to escape the claws of both the iron fisted men and the society in which they took part in everyday and unearth happiness. Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre and the Alice from Canterbury Tales: Wife of Baths are two women who followed separate paths, both full of rebellion against common belief, to ultimately find joy. Jane, Alice and the Narrator all relate in having to face the oppressive patriarchal values that dictated their society, however the different ways in which they each handled the situation in the end determined how they came out of it.
             Everyone has a different way of handling the different situations that they encounter in their daily lives. In this case, suppression of the female sex was an issue that Jane, Alice and the Narrator all had to contend with according to their own situation. Jane Eyre for example, grew up silenced and suppressed her whole life. She later took control and decided what she was willing to do to attain ultimate happiness. Subdued by her aunt ...