Social Criticism in Short Stories Although most short stories at first glance may seem to be simply fictional tales about people and situations that don’t exist, this is not always the case. Some short stories are actually the author’s criticisms of specific cultural values and social conventions veiled by an interesting plot and engaging characters. This is certainly true of three stories specifically: “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. In each of these stories, the author integrates his or her thoughts about society into the fiction.Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the semi-autobiographical story of a woman’s descent into madness in spite of and partly because of the husband’s prescription of lengthy bed-rest. This story is essentially Gilman’s criticism of how women were treated by men at that time. Men were nothing more than wardens in the lives of women. In the beginning of the story, the main character and her husband are spending time in a mansion they rented so that she may recuperate from the recent birth of her child%...
