The short stories The Revolt of Mother by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman both have strong central themes dealing with gender roles and domesticity that confined the nineteenth century women of the century. As the women in both of these stories change, the protagonist in Freeman's story takes positive control of her situation and facilitates dynamic change in her life, while the woman in Gilman's story slips into madness. Both stories use figurative language in the form of symbolism and irony, to illustrate themes and to set the tone for the story. Both rely on diction to add depth to the characters. Both stories share the common central theme of negative female gender identification and the lesser role of women in the nineteenth century compared to men of the same era. In the short story Mother's Revolt, the central character Sara is a forty-year-old wife whose husband Adoniram is more concerned with barns and outbuildings for his farm than with adapting his family's home and living conditions. In the work The Yellow Wallpaper the central character is a wife from a middle-class marriage who is experiencing what appears to be postpartum depression. His psychological treatment is a type of quasi-sensory deprivation that involves sequestering him in a room where he worries about the patterns on the wallpaper. In both stories, women are expected to live in an infantile state of unawareness that stifles their development and aspirations. In The Yellow Wallpaper the husband refers to his adult wife as a child when he states "What is it, little girl?" (Gilman). The farm wife in Mother's Day is told by her husband to "take care of your own business" (Freeman) when... midway through the paper... the characters give depth and believability. In Freeman's work the reader encounters a woman capable of overcoming the male-dominated world around her by giving the reader hope. Gilman's work on the other hand depicts a more tragic outcome in which the woman enters a state of madness. Source Cited Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins, The Revolt of Mother, The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. et al. 3rd edition, eds. Gilbert, Sandra and Gubar, Susan, vol. I. New York: Norton, 2007. Print pages 1346 - 1356Gilman, Charlotte P. The Yellow Wall Paper, The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. etal. 3rd edition, eds. Gilbert, Sandra and Gubar, Susan, vol. I. New York: Norton, 2007. PrintPages 1392 – 1403New Revised Standard Bible, Multiple Authors, New Oxford Annotated Bible-NRSV: New Revised Standard Version, et al. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, print