Your assignments for Thursday:
1. Read The Yellow Wallpaper. There is a page missing (653) in our coursepak. You can access online copy here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1952/1952-h/1952-h.htm
2. Read letter written by Gilman, "Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper"
3. Read Victorian Women: The Gender of Oppression--and think about how a number of our texts are connected to themes discussed.
Pay attention to the following themes/questions when reading The Yellow Wallpaper:
1. the narrator's relationship with her husband, how she characterizes him.
2. the narrator's efforts to assert herself, or claim space for herself, her thoughts: "I must say what I feel and think in some way..." (651)
3. the narrator's imagination, especially as she begins to contemplate the wallpaper--how is the wallpaper personified and why does she do this?
4. setting: why is setting important: note details about room and garden--how does she explore it, give it life?
5. What does the yellow wallpaper symbolize? Who is the woman inside it?
YOU MAY RESPOND TO ANY OF THESE QUESTIONS IF YOU WISH--OPTIONAL BLOG CREDIT :)
First of all…amazing story! Loved it. Now, onto the question.
ReplyDeleteThe relationship between the narrator and her husband is one of property owner and object. She is the object owned by her husband, much like most women of her time. He is the “physician of high standing” and she is just a weak, nervous, silly little woman (115). He doesn’t take anything she says seriously and she always finds a reason to accept it. She feels helpless. She asks “What is one to do?” multiple times in the text. He is also practical and does not believe in the supernatural. Therefore he stifles her imagination because anything that is not tangible is ridiculous. She says he is “careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (115). What she views as very careful and loving we now know is controlling and also because he thinks she is incapable of doing anything herself. She holds him up on a pedestal. She even makes excuses for her anger toward him. It would be crazy to think that her anger is actually because of him! No, it’s because of her nervous condition (115). Whatever he says she tries to justify and agree with it because that’s what a good wife does. She only admits to paper that John might be the reason she’s not getting well and that she disagree with him and his brother. However, even in the things she writes we see how often she tries to convince herself otherwise. She also hides things and won’t talk about other things. She wants to please him.
My impression of the relationship between narrator and John is that there were many relationships. They were, at once, husband and wife, doctor-patient, father-daughter, prison-guard - prisoner. creepy.
ReplyDeleteMy impression of the relationship between narrator and John is that there were many relationships. They were, at once, husband and wife, doctor-patient, father-daughter, prison-guard - prisoner. creepy.
ReplyDeleteThe relationship between the narrator and her husband could clearly be seen that he cared about her alot. However, the narrator describes him as being a practical man who would only have to see things to believe things whereas it is clearly seen that she is the total opposite of him who likes to fantasize and is very imaginative; this ends up making them have a few disagreements about certain things like for example the severity of her illness. The narrator insists that she doesn't feel well and that there is indeed something going on in her, but her husband refuses to acknowledge this, and instead uses what he thinks is rational which is trying to ignore the severity of her mental state in order to cure it and control it since it's "all in the head".
ReplyDeleteshe is trapped in a room that is suppose to better her, the yellow walls in the nursery symbolizes the calmness but it tells a deeper story than what is revealed. she is being contained into a room where she loose herself, in the end she ends up finding out that she was trapped in a life her husband has trapped her into and as she breaks down in the wall it shows her she is her only way out, she begins to tear apart the wall paper releasing the women trapped in the wall,setting herself free. the color was suppose to represent the calmness of being trapped but it screams free me. the color is always used when someone can not determine whether its a girl or boy so it was leaving her curious and indecisive about whom she was inside. once she spends time with becoming one with the paper she sees its been her inside all along
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