We might use the words utopia and dystopia to describe the two short stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that we read. What do those words mean? Which story is utopian and which is dystopian? Why?

I can clearly see how we can described both of these stories as utopia and dystopia. Let start of by saying that utopia means an ideal place or state. Dystopia means is an imaginary society in which social trends have culminated in a greatly diminished quality of life or degradation of values. I will consider “The Cottagette” as the utopia and “The Yellow Wallpaper” as the dystopia.

In “The Cottagette” we see that Malda has moved into a community which everyone has the same goal. The protagonist always seems to be positive about life. They all wanted to grow seeking for a better future. This will be considered to be an ideal place for Malda because she is associating herself with other people that have the same goals as her. We could also see the ideal state in her relationship with her partner who supports her no matter what. Mala was in a place where everyone shared their love for music.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” I see it being dystopia. In this story we see a woman that is clearly not able to make decisions for herself due to a “condition” her and her family think she has. The protagonist in this story gives the reader a sense of feeling trapped in her own home without the support of her husband.  She is not able to do things that she enjoys such as writing because her husband doesn’t like it. I also believe that she feels so disconnected with the outside world which causes to start imagine things that she sees in that yellow wallpaper.

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