“The Yellow Wallpaper” & “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”

2/17/21

Malia Andrews

“The Yellow Wallpaper”

The setting in “The Yellow Wallpaper” seems to be a summer house. The couple are staying there as their home undergoes repairs. In the first paragraph the narrator describes it as an “ancestral hall” and a “hereditary estate.” It was a very large house or building with expansive surrounding lands. Though the house big and curious, the narrator focuses on one room. The room she and her husband John shared. But more specifically the wallpaper. She describes the color as “repellent” and “revolting” and says the pattern “one of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (3). Her dislike towards the wallpaper turns into obsession. The narrator is sick from an unspecified illness but one can infer that it is postpartum psychosis, as her husband’s sister and their housekeeper Jennie, tends to her baby. However her husband who is a physician says she is not and must not put those thoughts into her head. According to John the environment would do her good, but the unfamiliar surroundings actually seem to worsen her case. She concludes that behind the pattern of the wallpaper was a crouching woman, trapped behind the bars and trying to shake her way through. There are two ways I have found interesting to interpret the narrator’s case. The first is that the wallpaper symbolizes her mind, which is turning in ways she cannot explain due to the sickness and she is the woman trapped inside this mind after her husband refuses to acknowledge it. The second is that the wallpaper or patterns actually remind her of the way she is in a sense trapped by her husband. John seems to dictate every aspect of her life. He doesn’t allow her to work or see her family. Although the time wasn’t mentioned in the story it was written in 1982 so this is almost definitely reflecting the subordinate role of women in marriage. It is also shedding light onto the seriousness of mental illness. During this time such sickness may have been seen as something rest could cure, which is clearly not the case. In the end the narrator identifies with the trapped woman and rips down the wallpaper to free her, but then she becomes her. She crouches down and follows the line on the wall just within the paper she has managed to tear off and claims she is free. 

“Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” 

This short story takes place in Northern Alabama at a railroad bridge called Owl Creek Bridge. It takes place during the civil war. The time and setting are important here because it explains the soldiers that were performing the execution. It also means that since the main character, Peyton Farquhar was devoted to the South’s cause, these were soldiers from the northern army. One symbol I noticed was the driftwood. As Farquhar stood above the bridge he could see the driftwood floating down the river. This reflects Farquhar’s unattainable freedom as it drifts away from him. A symbol I found interesting was the concept of time being different for Farquhar than it was for the soldiers. As it may have only taken seconds, or minutes for the sergeant to step off the plank, killing Farquhar in that time he imagined a scenario in which he had escaped. He traveled through the woods and even made it home. Farquhar had traveled hours through the forest to get home, even experiencing nightfall. But he had been at the foot of the bridge all along, awaiting his death which likely came seconds later.