monument; noun; a written legal document or record; a burial vault
In “A Rose for Emily”, when Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the woman mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house…
Now I understand that when Miss Emily died, the monument itself represents Emily and people are being respectful.
Temerity: (noun):Â the quality of being confident and unafraid of danger or punishment especially in a way that seems rude or foolish
From the story “A Rose for Emily”; “A few of the ladies had the temerity to call, but were not received, and the only sign of life about the palace was the Negro man-a young man then–going in and out with a market basket.”
Now the sentence is clear to me that after Emily’s father death she also departed from her love due to which she kept herself in isolation. So only few ladies attempted to call her inorder to show sympathy, or give the company, but Emily didn’t responded them.
coquettish: adj – a woman who endeavors without sincere affection to gain the attention and admiration of men [ coquette: noun ]
From “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.” (Section I – paragraph 2)
Now I understand that Miss Emily’s house is very individual, unique which marked by majestic dignity.
First of all, to define the terms âUtopiaâ and âDystopiaâ in a dictionary, Utopia is an ideal place or state which has any visionary system of political or social perfection. Dystopia is the antonym of âUtopiaâ which is defined as a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.
Between the two stories âThe cottagetteâ and âThe yellow wall paperâ, it is obvious which one is which. The cottagette shows us an example of a liberal form of marriage even in an era where people’s attitude toward the gender roles is very conservative. Whereas âThe yellow wall paperâ shows us how strictly the wife is controlled by her husband.
In the cottagette, Mr. Mathews proposes to Malda a condition in their marriage that she musn’t do house work but must keep doing what she loves as an embroidery artist, and he takes the part of cook which he has been for his life. People’s idea of typical gender roles today is getting more equivocal in their marriage comparing to the setting of the story in early 20th century. People tend to respect what their partners do regardless of their sex in the modern society. However, Mr. Mathews idea must be an unusual surprise. The outcome of their marriage life isn’t written in the story. So we’re only able to imagine if Mr. Mathews suggestion would work well for them. It might be a tough challenge in the time, or might successfully work. In any case, I believe his is the novel approach and respectful thought toward what she does is the very factor of Utopia which actually means the progress of a woman’s right.
On the other hand, in the Yellow Wall Paper, Mr. John’s attitude toward his wife is oppressive about her self-expression, although he really loves her and worries about her as both positions of a husband and a doctor. We could read that he never intended to hurt her from the context. However, I think he doesn’t see her as an person rather as his possession. So she should not have any duties and also any rights. I believe human beings construct their identity and the meaning of their existence through interaction with others in the society or express themselves freely. What if your freedom of expression and exchanges with others are taken away because you are supposed to be an obedient wife and exist as just an accessory to your husband. Nervous breakdown could occur at any moment like it happened to John’s wife.
Inexorably:adv: not to be persuaded, moved, or stopped.
From: “Women and Economics”: “Under all the influence of his later and wider life, all the reactive effect of social institutions, the individual is still inexorably modified by his means of livelihood: “the hand of the dyer is subdued to what he works in.” (paragraph 5)
I understand that even after all the reactive effect of social institutions the individual is not persuaded by his means of securing the necessities of life.
At the end of the paragraph, it really looks scary, “what was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust”.
Miss Emily was aggressive in nature and possessive too. She want him by her side forever. she fulfilled her wishes and stayed stick to her principle. She seems worst than an animal. when we see kittens die in-front of their mother, they abandon the kitten after become maudlin for few days.
“See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson.” (para 12) Miss Emily think that she is still in the days of Mayor Colonel Sartoris. It shows either she is mentally retarded or still in  eccentric state.
She wanted no one to interfere so she didn’t allow the mailing box to be attache at the door. And her behavior was alienating that all the town gave up on her. The town could not bear the smell and Judge Stevens could not accuse Miss Emily for smelling bad. Who would have thought that someone was poisoned inside her house.
In this story, it is third-person limited narrator.  Miss Emily is a flat character, it reached the climax when town members sprinkled lime in the building. it has visual imagery and olfactory imagery.
Choose three quotations from âThe Yellow Wall-Paperâ that convince you that the protagonist is an unreliable narrator and explain why for each.
An unreliable narrator is one that makes you questions whether or not he or she is telling the truth. In the storyâ the yellow wall-paperâ, I will say the narrator is unreliable because she is mentally disturbed. Therefore, it is very hard for one to say she is truthfully explaining herself. One approach that shows the narrator unreliability is when she said â I get unreasonably angry with John sometimesâ. This demonstrates that she doesnât have a reason to be angry with him, she cannot control her emotions and she doesnât know why she feels the ways she feels sometimes, which indicates that she cannot be a reliable person.
Another proof of unreliability is the way she quickly changes her minds and opinions about things. One moment she likes something, later she hates it and then she likes again. For example, â the wall-paper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it sticketh closer than a brother-they must have had perseverance as well as hatred, but I donât mind it a bit only the paperâ. She seems to strongly dislike the wallpaper, but later on she mention â Iâm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wall paperâ. Discovering so many new things about the patterns of the wallpaper fascinates her. Moreover, according to her, she is healing because of the wallpaper. Therefore, we can say that her feelings toward the wallpaper are not quite consistent.
Moreover, she is so lost in her own world that she refuses to believe her husband and her brother when they are telling her about her condition even though she knows they are both doctors. She states â but I am smarter than them â, which indicates that she is tricking them. She believes that no one understands her and only she knows whatâs wrong with her. Therefore one can say that she is not a reliable narrator.
If you’ve been asked to blog for Wednesday’s class, that means that you need to complete your post by the end of the weekend. Everyone else needs to comment by 10:00am Wednesday. I’ve come up with several topics, but would love to hear others you’re interested in or want your classmates to attempt to address:
Choose three quotations from “The Yellow Wall-Paper” that convince you that the protagonist is an unreliable narrator and explain why for each.
Choose three quotations from “The Yellow Wall-Paper” that present the married couple’s relationship, and explain what you understand about John as a character, and about the protagonist as a narrator for the way she depicts John.
We might use the words utopia and dystopia to describe the two short stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that we read. What do those words mean? Which story is utopian and which is dystopian? Why?
How do the different settings come into play in these two short stories by Gilman? In what ways might we read the settings as similar but the inhabitants of those worlds as different?
Is Malda a reliable narrator in “The Cottagette”? why or why not? Incorporate quotations into your answer to support your argument.
In what ways is “A Rose for Emily” similar to other texts we have read? different? What do you think about those similarities and differences?
The narrator in “A Rose for Emily” is different than others we have encountered. What term would you use to identify the narrator? is it a reliable narrator? Use evidence from the story to show why you say reliable or not.
This might be your first time posting, but it’s no longer new for us to read posts and comment, right? We’re getting really good at it! Let’s keep the good efforts going: when writing a post, remember to include a title that reflects what youâre writing (it shouldnât be able to apply to everyoneâs post and can certainly be longer than one word), choose appropriate categories and tags (or add if you want a tag that isnât there already), write at least 300 words, proofread, and publish! If there are links or media you want to include, please do. Commenters, please contribute100-150 words, proofread, and leave your reply. If you want to leave additional replies, you don’t need watch the word count, but you should still proofread! You can always go back and edit!
demur : verb :To voice opposition; Law To enter a demurrer.
from the story ” The Cottagette “, i demurred  a little, it was monday, Mrs. Fowler thought it was cheaper to have a woman come and wash, and we did, but it certainly made more work.
i now understand that the author was showing reluctance to Ford Mathews  request, “one day he came around early and asked me to go up hugh’s peak with him”.
Erroneous: Adjective:Â containing or characterized error.
From Women and Economics Chapter XIV “Our assumption that only married people and their immediate relatives have any right to live in comfort and health is erroneous.”
I now understand what she meant in saying this which is basically our assumptions about peoples right to live in comfort and good health was wrong.
I wonât say âThe Yellow Wallpaperâ by Gilman fits in the category of typical horror stories, which fascinates or shocks the readers by introducing them to supernatural powers, bloodshed, or scary scenes. But this story shares some properties with the horror collections. There are incidents in the story where author has created weird and scary situations in a fascinating manner.
The story is about the author herself who suffers from physiological disorder and her struggle during the phase with her own imaginary scary activities. When the author starts narrating the story, it feels like as if she is going to narrate a horror story. In the second paragraph of the story she start saying âA colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house,â The author leads the story with the description of the house which she and her husband have rented for summer. Describing the house as old and haunted she is conveying message to the readers that the house carries some unusual environment. Again to support her statement that there is something wrong with the house she adds âElse, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?â In this way Gilman creates a horror story type scenario and presents a dark scary image in front of the readers. As the story moves on, the author gets disturb by the wallpaper in a room and she starts seeing unusual activities âThere is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stares at you upside down.â Here using the words like broken neck and bulbous eyes, author is presenting a disturbed image to the readers like in horror stories. Like the unusual activities intensifies in the horror stories, Gilmanâs fear intensifies and she starts seeing a character, a woman creeping on the wall and haunting her âIt creeps all over the house. I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.â No one except Gilman witness the woman and the activities. Only she is being haunted by the woman figure. Till the end of the story the imaginary woman character keeps haunting the author for the freedom. And finally she gets rid of the fear by peeling off the wall paper. Looking at these points I would definitely say that âThe Yellow Wall Paperâ has the taste of a horror story.
Does the short story âThe Cottagetteâ present a solution to the issues raised in Gilmanâs non-fiction âWomen and Economicsâ? Explain your stance.
I do believe that “The Cottagette” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents a solution to the issues raised in “Woman and Economics” also by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Some of the issues that she raises are that women are the only species that depend on men for survival. She doesn’t believe that women are any lower than man and they need to get rights and be equal. She argues that women need to change how people view them and what society expects from them.
The solution from “The Cottagette” changes the idea that woman have about marriage and what they believe all men want. If all men were like Malda’s husband and not expect women to be their cooks and house maids then the idea of marrying just for that wouldn’t exist. He says “It is not true, always, my dear,” said he, “that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach; at least its not the only way.” ( last paragraph)
Gilman argues that women take on too much of a role in the marriage, more than the men, and do not get enough credit which created an image for women as unpaid workers. Some women believe that it is their duty to serve for their husband and only get married for that reason. Lois says âWhat they care for most after all is domesticity. Of Course theyâll fall in love with anything; but what they want to marry is a homemaker.âShe gave her that advice to make her house more homey and have a real kitchen and cook for her husband thinking he wanted that but he wanted the opposite. Malda’s husband only wanted her to continue her hobbies and what she wanted to fulfill her dreams.
The “Cottagette” portrays what female roles were like during the 1900’s, for example when Malda expresses her rational thoughts about Ford Mathews, Lois States “What they care for most after all is domesticity. Of Course they’ll fall in love with anything; but what they want to marry is a homemaker.” This statement is eye opening for Malda because through out the story we can distinguish how Malda is trying very hard to cook and be a homemaker, it amuses me how a women was comfortable with settling to simply be a homemaker. Gilman shows the stereotypical concept that the role of a women in marriage is to be a homemaker. She explains it is not the only thing women are adequate at but women are also resourceful. Ford Matthews states in the story âit is not true, always, my dear, that the way to a manâs heart is through his stomach.â This acknowledgement displays that it doesn’t always have to be “bread and butter” to fulfill a guys needs. Later on in the story we come to realize that Ford Matthews doesn’t just want Malda to be a homemaker, he inspires Malda to do what shes good at and she confesses it. She states “i dont want to cook–i want to draw.” Ford asked Malda to marry him but he had a condition which was, Malda had to give up cooking and continue to do what she loves to do which is draw as he would take on the role of cooking which shows true love and equality in a marriage.
âThe Cottagetteâ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, can be looked at as a feminist text because of the year it was written and the tone of the story. By the early 1900âs women were fighting for their equality of rights. In either a relationship or marriage women had to be housewives and do all the household duties while their other halves worked. They stayed home all day either taking care of the children, doing  laundry, cooking, cleaning the typical role of the women was rarely questioned until women started to speak out saying they are able to do more than what society wanted them to do.
The reason why I can consider this a feminist text because Gilman says âLois likes to do housework, but it spoils her hands for practicing⌠I always work best in the morning; but of course housework has to be done in the morning to; it is astonishing how much work there is in the littlest kitchenâ(page 5, paragraph 5). Here it clearly says that Lois likes what she has to do on a daily basis and you see this first hand on a womanâs perspective that enjoys what she does. Also another reason why this can be viewed as a feminist text is when Gilman writes âThe Cottagetteâ I loved unreservedly. It was so little and new and clean, smelling only of its fresh planed boardsâthey hadnât even stainedâ(page 1, paragraph 9). It shows that she appreciates the little things in life.
The Cottagette is a symbol throughout the story which I believe represents all housewives, who have a little place in the house to call their own which is the kitchen. Where they are in control of what takes places in there and itâs what most men donât interfere with, which is to keep the house in order. Gilman molds Lois, as the inspiration to most women who take pride in what they do.
flamboyant:Â Tending to attract attention because of their exuberance, confidence, and stylishness.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper (1899), Page 2, Line 27
” One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin”
that design of the art seen stood out in a negative way, what the artist was trying to portray wasn’t seen that way.
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