Atrocious: Adjective: extremely wicked, brutal, or cruel;: appalling , horrifying.
From “The Yellow Wallpaper”, ” I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as i please, save lack of strength.”(Page 2, paragraph 8)
Now i understand that the narrator believed that the nursery was a scary place  to be in.
In the short story of ” A Rose for Emily”, The main character that is being read about goes through her life being told how to live it. I can compare this stories with the other short stories that we have read. Emily could not marry any man she pleased with out the approval of her father. Of course that is a natural process for one’s parents to give an opinion. But in this situation, her father disapproved all of the male suiters as a candidate. “ We remembered all the young men her father had driven away….” (Section 2)  As any parent would do, he was probably keeping her safe.
In my opinion he probably thought that no one was best for his daughter. In the story of ” The Yellow Wallpaper”, we also see about a women that is claimed to be sick by her husband who is a doctor. Her husband controls what his wife does in order to get “better” from her “sick conditions”. “John is a physician…If a physician of high standing and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression.“ (Page1)
     I can say that both these men probably had a good intention of keeping their women safe, but in reality they were both hurting them. Emily’s father hurt her psychologically, in a way that she probably didn’t notice at first. She kept her fathers body after he died and lied that he had died until she was being questioned about it. She also poisoned the last man she fancied and kept his body at her bed in the room. She felt the need to be accompanied because she probably  felt lonely. And in the Yellow Wallpaper, her husband took away her sanity, he did not let her do absolutely anything that would harm her. He took away the liberty of having friends and even from writing. The women felt that if she wrote with freedom she would feel better , but she was prohibited from it. In the end of the story, we find that she had gone crazy and probably developed into a serious psychological problem, which made her obsess over a yellow wallpaper in the room where she slept.
In conclusion, both of these short stories we see women being cared and hurt for by men, with “good intentions” but in reality end up having bad results in the end.
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.
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!
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.
Querulous– Adjective, habitually complaining, fretful,whining.
From ” The Yellow Wallpaper”  I don’t feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over for anything, and I’m getting dreadfully fretful and querulous”. ( Page 4, paragraph 8)
Now i understand that the main character has been sick for a while and she has been whining trying to make herself feel better.
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