Category: Film-Lit Coffeehouse (Page 3 of 3)

This summer was ruined for me due to Covid 19, all my travel plans had to be cancelled. My long awaited trip to Japan, RUINED. As disappointing as that was for me, I don’t really think I have done anything that might be considered impactful or anything. I mostly stayed home and binge watched shows. I did make my sister who’s afraid of driving on the highway drive on the highway. It seems she’s a little less afraid than before but still hesitant. That’s about the most thrilling things that happened this summer for me. 

Between the two stories, I prefer “The Yellow Wallpaper”,  both of the stories centralizes in mental health.  Which even to this day is somewhat of an taboo subject. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator seems to be suspicious of the house they moved into. She seems to disagree with her husbands and brothers diagnosis. John believes there’s nothing that is making the narrator suffer anymore so she couldn’t be suffering at all. She’s been told not to write because it would exhaust her or something. Which is weird since she suffers from postpartum depression or nervous exhaustion,  which is actually very common. This story is basically the narrators little diary where she talks to herself and confesses how she feels about thing and everything happening in her life. She’s been restricted to do many things just because John told her so. She doesn’t even spend time with her baby boy, Mary has to take care of him.  The themes in “The Yellow Wallpaper” are the oppressive nature of gender roles, appearance versus reality, and the need for self-expression. The yellow wallpaper is very symbolic it represents her family, medine and her own state of being. The narrator seems to have totally lost it, she sees herself in the wallpaper, stuck unable to move around freely.  At the end after John fainted and she crept over him it could be interpreted that the narrator was able to rise above John but at the cost of her sanity.

This summer I was supposed to go to concerts and travel, but due to everything that is going on all of that has been postponed. However, one thing that made me feel good this summer was that I was still able to go to the beach (wearing a mask and social distancing of course). Other than that this summer was pretty uneventful. I spent a lot of time with my family, which was nice because between work and school I really do not get to see them. I also spent a lot of time with myself.

Out of the two stories “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” my favorite is “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Last semester I read “The Yellow Wallpaper,” in my Women’s studies class, so we were able to break down the story, and it was my favorite story we read that semester.  The reason why it was my favorite is because “The Yellow Wallpaper,” addresses many important issues such as sexism and mental illness.  It takes a close look into women’s mental health and the importance. The narrator is emotionally isolated from her husband and because of this she is isolated from others. The narrator spends most of her time staring at the hideous yellow wallpaper that is in her bedroom. Placing all her neurosis into discovering the mysteries behind the patterns, the narrator begins to lose her mind.  Women who are suffering from any sort of depression, such as postpartum, should be respected and should be allowed to make decisions regarding their health and lifestyle. John has told the narrator time and time again that she is in fact sick. This can be viewed as controlling because she cannot tell him otherwise for he is the one who is a physician and he knows better. John tells the narrator who she can and can not see. She wants to visit her family, but he does not allow it because her family does not have the same views as him, and for this she is only allowed to see his family. 

This summer was definitely different.  I wasn’t able to go out with my friends like other summers, I was home most of the summer taking a course online. I was able to practice my driving though, driving my dad to work and then picking him up so that he wouldn’t have to take public transportation.

Between “The-Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”, I like “The Tell-Tale-Heart” more because it was intriguing from the start.  I found “The-Tell-Tale Heart” a bit easier to understand and follow along. While reading “The Yellow Wallpaper” I had to reread certain parts in order to understand what I was reading and be able to follow the story. I also found the ending of “The-Tell-Tale Heart” to be more interesting with him confessing his crime because of the noises he was hearing even though the police had found nothing on him. Whereas, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” you could kind of see where it was heading to: she was obsessed over the wallpaper and kept being so until the end.  I also found the things used in “The Tell-Tale Heart” more interesting. For example, to me the use of the old man’s eye was more interesting than the wallpaper. In both stories, the characters were obsessing over these things and I just found the use of the eye more appealing, different, making me go “really?” With “The-Tell-Tale-Heart” I was able to pick stuff out right away, for example that the person had something going on, was bothered by the old man’s eye, was bothered by the noises after he killed the old man which could relate to his conscious. Whereas with “The Yellow Paper” it took me some time to depict certain things or come to conclusions. I guess “The Yellow Wallpaper” might take some more analyzing and “The-Tell-Tale Heart” was more of a straight forward short story to read.

This summer was different compared to the others because I could not go most places. I was planning to go to the Dominican Republic and visit the family that I have not seen in a long time. Although that was inconvenient I understand that it was needed to get things back to normal, or at least better. I instead decided to go to Pensilvaina and spend time with my family there. I got a temporary job out there as well. It consisted of folding papers and having to keep up with my speedy coworkers. Even though it wasn’t what I was planning on doing for the summer, it turned out great and I couldn’t be happier about it.

I personally preferred ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ because it has a really intense feeling while reading but I like that because it kept you intrigued. Although both readings were really dense with information and feeling I feel as though ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ was confusing at times only because of how the author decided to organize the reading. The jumps between days and maybe even months, and also the mood changes. In comparison to ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ was very clear because the emotion came one right after in the flow of the story and also it was within that same day not a span of a couple months. Which made it easier to follow the story.  In the end I do think that these are great readings and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is willing to also watch the film too. I say this because when you watch the film you get more insightful information about the characters based on the decor within the animation and the facial expressions. Also the facial expressions give off different vibes because it varies on the person.

This summer was pretty uneventful. I had plans to go to Spain, Barcelona to be exact in April then Jamaica in July for my birthday. I unfortunately was unable to do both due to Covid-19. I spent my summer bonding with old friends and making new friends. I must say this pandemic has brought me closer to my friends because it forced us to make due with what we had and make the best of these strange times. Although I didn’t get to travel as much as I would have liked this year I’m happy that I have my health and that my family is safe. Next summer I plan on re-doing my travel plans to Spain and Jamaica. I am definitely looking forward to this trip to Spain, more so for the food and the culture . I have a feeling summer 2021 will be better. Fingers Crossed!

Between “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” I must say I enjoyed reading “The Tell Tale heart” more. Both short stories are very complexed in their own way but I found I had to re-read “The Yellow Wallpaper” more than once to grasp a clear understanding.  I will be honest, I am kinda biased because Edgar Allen Poe is one of my favorite writers. His dark and dry humor and his way of using cliffhangers in his stories have always kept me interested. Most of Edgars stories tend to be dark and eerie but they always have a lesson to it in the end which I enjoy the most about his work. “The Yellow Wallpaper” was hard to understand at first,I believe because the way the narrator spoke and the choice of words. The story had a deeper meaning and message behind it that I liked but trying to get to the bottom of it took a lot of analyzing and decoding and I wasn’t a fan of that. Overall both are good reads but I would recommend an Edgar Allen Poe story any day.

HI.

Hi Everybody. This is where we will practice our critical writing skills on subjects related to film and literature. For this first coffeehouse post (DUE Thursday, SEPTEMBER 10), I wish to students to consider these two questions: First, name one fun thing that you did this summer that surprised you, or motivated you, or made you feel good. My answer to this is that I took a paddleboarding lesson. Always wanted to learn how, and it was pretty fun, but also stressful. I took my lesson on Jamaica Bay. The problem is that I have a fairly serious fear of sharks, so I was very timid and worried about falling in. I fell in once, but luckily, the sharks did not eat me.

The second question that I would like students to answer is this: which of the two longer stories we have read so far is your favorite? And why? [“The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”] I won’t write my opinion here because that might sway students too much. At any rate, these coffeehouse posts should be conversational, friendly, and experimental. This means that you don’t have to be overly formal, but you should stretch yourself in terms of vocabulary and sentence structures. And, of course, please proof your work carefully before publishing.

Total word count: at least 300

How do we post to OpenLab? It’s pretty simple. Once logged in and on our class site, go to Dashboard, and find Posts > Add New on the top-left. Then, click the Category type. This is very important or it will show up on the Home page. Once you click the category “Film-Lit Coffeehouse,” then you can start typing. Proofread your work, then save. Then, you can preview it. Finally click publish.

Here’s a short video I made last semester on how to create and post a Virtual Coffeehouse post:

Here are the directions from OpenLab:

Cheers,

Prof. Scanlan