the yellow wallpaper

I found myself very intrigued by this story. I thought it was very similar to Edgar Allen Poe’s dark and horror writing which is rare because I have never found myself comparing anyone’s writing to Poe. What shocked me most was that these dark thoughts and ideas were written by a woman. Usually, women write about a damsel in distress who finds love or about a strong empowered woman who displays multiple acts of feminism and pushes the boundaries. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, admittedly, does push the envelope with this story. The entire time I was reading, I questioned whether the narrator was mentally ill or if she really is depressed due to her oppressive marriage and imprisoned lifestyle. I think that this story is about the narrator being psychotic and mentally ill. The way she finds life in the wallpaper is not something normal people would do. It seems that her husband, John, and his sister also take notice that there is something very unusual about her because they put her in a room that resembles a jail with bars on the window and her bed nailed to the floor. Depressed people do not need restraint in that way. They are encouraged to keep themselves busy and do activities but the narrator does just the opposite which leads me to believe that John might believe she is a hazard to society but does not do anything about it because he does not know what to do even though he is a doctor.

*i had emailed this entry to you earlier in the semester when i could not be added to the discussion group but I figured i would post it so you could grade them all together.*

the real thing

I found this story uninteresting to read compared to the other works we have studies thus far. The reading felt rather tedious than continuous. This story had a search for perfection and emphasized physical perfection instead of emotional feeling. There is no real talk of emotion whatsoever. There is only talk of the physical aspects of his subjects or what could make the painting better but there was never any feeling attached. This mirrors the story, The Birthmark, where the main character, Aylmer, does not take into account the feelings of his wife with the birthmark he just obsesses over her physical appearance and his ability to remove it. The narrator is an illustrator, which is considered the lowest form of artist. He hires a monarch couple that has lost all their money and is in search of money to be the subjects of his painting. Typically, monarchs are supposed to be the perfect subjects for a painting but the low class Italian man, Oronte, and the low class British woman, Miss Churm, ended up being much better subjects than the monarchs and even make the painting better. This example shows why this story has a large emphasis on anti-traditionalism because it strays from the normal stereotype that the upper class display perfectionism.

*i had emailed this entry to you earlier in the semester when i could not be added to the discussion group but I figured i would post it so you could grade them all together.*

The Maid of Saint Phillippe

In this story, I believe Kate Chopin wanted to prove something through her literature. It is apparent that through this story, she experimented with strict gender roles and identity. Even though this was a short and straight forward story, it definitely says a lot. In the Maid of Saint Phillippe, Marianne is the protagonist throughout this story. Kate Chopin described Marianne in a nontraditional way an author would describe a woman at this time: “Marianne was tall, supple, and strong.” These characteristics are usually ones to describe a male figure in a story. If those descriptions weren’t obvious enough, Kate Chopin then writes, that Marianne looks like “a handsome boy rather than like the French girl of seventeen that she was.” I suppose by describing Marianne in a boy-like way is supposed to empower her and make her a strong, independent character? This might sound feminist, but I don’t understand why Chopin can’t make her sound like a beautiful, delicate, womanly-like girl and also make her character a strong independent person. I think it might be because they believe that this is the only way to be strong and to be independent. If all Chopin ever knew of is that men are strong and men are independent, I guess it would make sense this way. Before you act the part, you must look the part sort of thing? I appreciated the experimental gender roles, but for today it just doesn’t apply.

The Real Thing

On a daily basis we always strive for perfection. There is not one person on this earth who does not care about the outcome of their life. Everyone wants the nicest cars, the most beautiful house and the ability to say that they have “the real thing”. Written by Henry James, “The Real thing” is a short story based on Realism. There is a couple called, the Monarchs, who are models and physically are perfect. The ironic part is that their imperfections pay a toll in making them the worst models ever. They never listen, fight with each other and are to tied up in making people think that they are the perfect couple that they become just the opposite. The title of the story has us at a disadvantage when it comes to the definition of the real thing. We still do not know what the real thing in life is supposed to be and the narrator never achieves it with his models. I think that this story is a realist view on life. The world is not perfect despite what everyone thinks. The world is full of imperfections, which makes society go on. We do not know if the people right in front of us are who they say to be. Much like that of the models in the story, the could just be fake and trying to make it seem as if they are perfect.

Gender Reversal/Neutralization – The Maid of Saint Phillippe

As you read “The Maid of Saint Phillippe,” there are obvious instances of gender reversal and neutralization.  Let me preface this by saying, I’m not trying to be sexist or say that men and woman must act in a certain way, this story just has instances of characterization that differs from what may be called standard portrayal of men and women in literature.  That main point is just what Chopin may have been getting at in this early groundbreaking feminine literature; gender reversal and gender neutralization, that women and men can do the same things.

If you go over the characterization of Marianne and Captain Vaudry, especially when they are talking to each other, you can see the gender reversal. Vaudry is always constantly portraying great emotion and love for Marianne like many women in literature do, while Marianne is the cold and matter-of-fact side that love won’t work out.  This is different from much of the literature being written, especially in the 1800’s, where women were normally portrayed as the weak, easily persuadable, and always the ones falling hopelessly in love.

The gender neutralization side of things, is shown in how Marianne dresses throughout the story.  At first, and at the very end, she is dressing as a man who is going hunting would.  “Dressed in her worn buckskin trappings she looked like a handsome boy…” (1118).  Also, “With gun across her shoulder she walked…her brave, strong face turned…” (1123).  These are both instances where Chopin is showing that girls and women can dress like men as well, that there shouldn’t be a problem with it.  Marianne is also portrayed as being able to dress like a lovely woman, when she goes home and isn’t hunting anymore.  “When she returned she was dressed in the garments that had been her mother’s once…and upon her head was the white cap of the French working-woman” (1120).

The Lady with the Dog

The short story seems to take on a character similar to other Chekhov works I’ve read such as “The Bet” and “The Three Sisters.”  The opening descriptions really help to set the mood, and help the reader understand what the environment feels like, since the seaside town of Yalta is drastically different in climate than that of Moscow, where the the main character Dmitri hails from.  Understanding this difference, it is hard to understand how this mild climate is dull to the lady with the dog.  The story also points out that Dmitri is not quite forty, but had a wife and children, so seeing him spend time with this lady seems to be far from customs around the turn of the 20th century.  The descriptions of Dmitri, even the ones he gives of himself, make him sound like a very unfaithful person in all aspects of his life, a quitter.  He sees women as objects, a “lower race,” and is often unfaithful to his own wife.  He tells this lady with the dog how he studied the arts, yet works at a bank, and gave up at signing opera.  Then, just to further disgust the reader, he mentally compares this woman to his own daughter, implying that she is not much older.  His thoughts become more than borderline creepy saying “it must have been the first time in her life she had been alone in surroundings in which she was followed, looked at, and spoken to merely from a secret motive which she could hardly fail to guess.”  That secret motive may seems to be more than obvious to the reader, yet for the sake of decency, it should be given the benefit of a doubt.  With all of these descriptions, Chekhov has created quite the intriguing situation.

“The lady with the Dog”

  In “The Lady with the Dog” Dmitri Curov is your typical 40 year old man perhaps going through his mid life crisis. He is married and has a daughter but cheats on his wife with different women. Even though he says women are of “the lower race,” he still feels more comfortable around women than he does men. 40 is definitely around the age when men start to do outrageous things because they think they are getting too old and must enjoy life by doing risky stuff. Dmitri cheats on his wife until he finds a young married woman who he really falls in love with. Anna, the lady with the dog, was only visiting Dmitri’s home town on vacation but of course she spent most of her time with Dmitri. When her husband sends for her return, she admitted that it just might be a good thing that she has to leave. Dmitri thinks that he will soon forget about Anna by going on with his daily routines, but unfortunately he does not. This constant thinking about Anna makes him run after her and show up at her home town. Dmitri meets with Anna at an operetta in the audience and confesses his love for her so she agrees to visit him in his home town again. When she does she like any other girl feels horrible about living the lie. Dmitri on the other hand, was perfectly happy with the way things between them had worked out

The Yellow Wallpaper

This is probably one of the most interesting stories I have read in a very long time. The way that the letters are written and the way they are all strung together really brings out the state of mind of the wife and how the process of insanity was a slow and excruciating process. But the story itself really interested me due to not only the way it was written, but what it was also written about. The idea of psychosis has always fascinated me, and this story really brought into perspective the ways in which it can be induced.

With a lot of these short stories, the plot is quite basic. The wife is locked up in a small, yellow bedroom by her obsessive husband who thinks it best for her to be kept away from the rest of the world. This isolation begins to eat away at her mind, and this is quite visible in the journal entries that she writes. The slow and steady process of insanity grew within the mind of the narrator as she began to get more and more obsessed with the Yellow wallpaper that surrounded her on a daily basis. The intricacy of the patterns on the yellow walls drew her attention, and eventually grabbed hold of it for good. She was eventually unable to keep her mind off the wallpaper and even after a portion of time began to see things within the walls.

This leads to full madness. The narrator began to see a woman in the yellow mass, almost as if she was seeing herself in the paper. This is an obvious reflection of the state that the narrator is in and how she herself is locked within the room, or the wallpaper.

I found this story both terrifying and intriguing. The way that the disease infected the mind of the narrator and the way that it was portrayed through the story made it seem as if me as the reader was a part of the madness as well.

The Maid of Saint Phillipee

I really enjoyed reading this short story. It is amazing how Chopin can put so much detail in 6 pages. As discussed in class Chopin uses history and detail to get her story across. This story goes against all gender roles of the 18th century. Mary Anne is not the typical French girl. Chopin starts off the story with this description of a character who comes across vey boyish; but in fact is a girl who is actually beautiful. Captain is a character in the story who has the emotions of a girl, but the name of a superior male figure. When Captain proposes to Mary anne, he is shown as emotional, desperate, and needed. Mary Anne does not take this proposal like the average girl. Captain and Mary anne have the gender roles completely mixed up. When she refuses the proposal and goes against what her Father had taught her, this shows how Mary Anne chooses to live her own life. She went against everything the church and government wanted to be an individual. This story also does a really good job in showing characters with multiple personalities. For example, when Mary Anne is around her father she follows him, but when she is with captain she is her own boss. When Chopin started the story with a brief historical intro this was the first time we had seen this. All of the other authors we have looked out just went into the story. I found that extremely interesting how she did that.

the yellow wallpaper

I found this story to be a very exciting and interesting read. I like how it is written in almost a journal style way of writing but has no dates of entry; I find it gives a lot of energy and excitement to this story. “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Gilman really explores the submissiveness of a woman to her husband. This woman is having a complete nervous breakdown and is a very neurotic character. She deeply believes something is extremely wrong with her and there is not much she can do to get better. Her husband who is a practicing physician has too much power over his wife in my opinion. Rather than loving each other equally and having mutual respect for one another this relationship seems pretty disturbed. He doesn’t allow her to leave the house nor to express herself through writing. Every time the husband is approaching she stops her journaling because he forbids her from doing so. He thinks he is helping his wife but is actually hindering her by not listening to her. She confesses that writing makes her feel better; it gives her a sense of freedom to escape from the place she is locked away in. She completely hates the room, which she stays, not the room so much as the wallpaper. She is obsessed with it and all its flaws. To me the wallpaper represents her failed marriage. She in trapped in a situation where she is dehumanized. Her thoughts and feelings are overlooked by her husband.