Film-lit #1: Yellow Wallpaper/Owl Creek

SHANNA MOHAN 2/18/2021

For what both works are, as is, emphasizes mindset and the mental space of who the reader is following.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, I think the time isn’t important. It’s meant to show it’s fading away, just like the woman’s sanity. It was meant to be spending a summer in this big house, colonial type of house, pretty isolated being away from the village. Everything is kept neat like the outdoor space/garden. I think this, the description of the house, shows an accurate representation of the story that is about to unfold about this lonely lady, that is slowly questioning her wellbeing. The house is alone, has barred windows, paint stripping off the walls and this dull yet irritating pattern on walls. I think this all can be applicable in describing the protagonist. She’s so horrendously offended by the “artistic sin” that’s being showcased throughout the house. This exact thing, deeply affects her. Just in the way she describes it, the words she uses “suicide”, “destory themselves”, “provoke”, and “repellent/revolting”, she so strongly says she would hate it if she spends more time in the house. But she becomes more alone in the house, days passing, struggling to reach her own goal of writing and the room, the house as an environment is depressing her. Which makes sense, I think your surroundings are a really important factor into someone’s mental state. As a theme, I think it hits on mental health, being a woman, what seems like a failing partner/draining relationship where she’s unable to be honest and feels almost in debt that her significant other is doing so much for her.

In “An occurrence at owl creek”, I’m split between the focus of this short story so far from it being about the timing, and it being about this man who is observing his surroundings before he himself has to die. On the other hand, time of being alive is having it’s spotlight. I think once there’s a conversation about death, passing, after life, moments living up to one’s unlikely demise, then there is some importance about time. There is a description that adds to this “what he heard was the ticking of his watch”. Of course seeing people being hung, avail dropped on them, seeing death in people’s eyes will affect this character. It sounds like he’s well aware and maybe beyond a state of shock and empathy. There’s death all around, soldiers for wartime, slaves. Pain adding to this growing acknowledgement of death, and I think hyperfocusing on that only deteriorates one’s mental state. I think this shows a lot about war, the historical significance, even god. When he’s running, he’s basically praying that he gets out of this. There’s this imagery of his beautiful wife with feminene garments and then the reader is suddenly hit over the head with Farquhar’s death, laying broken and bruised.