Choose one of the questions from Tuesday’s assignment that you didn’t respond to, or choose one of the following questions to respond to in your blog post due on Thursday morning (I think these are more interesting!):
Consider these three very different pieces by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: two short stories, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and “The Cottagette,” and the chapter (XIV) from a non-fiction work, Women and Economics. How do the different narrative styles compare? Or how does the information conveyed in the non-fiction chapter come through in either of the short stories?
In feminist narratologist Susan Sniader Lanser’s groundbreaking study, Fictions of Authority: Women Writers and Narrative Voice, Lanser argues that social pressures not only constrained the content of the narrative but the narration style itself. Early in her book, Lanser includes a letter that showcases one writer’s solution to the limitations she found in writing negatively about her marriage. When I read this letter and Lanser’s analysis of it, I wonder what techniques Charlotte Perkins Gilman employed to convey a positive message about the narrator’s feelings about her husband while also conveying something much different to a more tuned-in reader. Read the letter on pages 9-11 of Fictions of Authority and write a post considering your reactions to the letter and the ways the letter illuminates the way you read any of the short stories assigned so far this semester.
In the selection from Women and Economics, Gilman makes an argument about housework. What is it? Does the short story “The Cottagette” present a solution to the issues raised in Gilman’s non-fiction Women and Economics? Explain your stance.
Some of you have begun to consider the issue of narrator reliability. Compare narrator reliability in “The Cottagette” and “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” or compare one of these with the reliability of the narrator in “The Story of an Hour.” Include examples by quoting from the text to show what informs your sense of reliability.
“The Yellow Wall-Paper” was once believed to have been out of print from 1920 until feminist scholars re-discovered it in the 1970s. Here are two possible topics to consider based on this statement:
- How do you read “The Yellow Wall-Paper” or “The Cottagette” as a feminist text? What does that mean? Use specific references to the text to support your argument.
OR
- According to one examination of “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and its publication history, the story did remain in print in between its reprint in 1920 and its feminist re-discovery in the 1970s–in horror story collections. In what ways do you see “The Yellow Wall-Paper” as a horror story? Include specific references to the text to support your claims.
What connections do you see among the stories assigned from the start of the semester and either or both of Gilman’s stories? Are there trends you can identify? Or contrasting situations/characters/styles that are worth noting in their difference? Be specific!
