Smother verb \ˈsmə-thər\
a : to kill (someone) by covering the face so that breathing is not possible
b : to try to keep (something) from happening : to try to stop doing (something)
“She was afraid to fall asleep; she slept with the weight of her thigh on Magda’s body; she was afraid she would smother Magda under her thigh.”
The Shawl paragraph 6
Rosa is afraid to fall asleep because she was scared the weight of her thigh might kill baby Magda.
Exploit verb \ik-ˈsploit, ˈek-ˌ\
a: to make productive use of : utilize <exploiting your talents> <exploit your opponent’s weakness>
b: to make use of meanly or unfairly for one’s own advantage <exploiting migrant farm workers>
“He became, for us, a thing to be avoided, outsmarted, and exploited.”
The Shawl paragraph 11
Initially I thought of exploited as a noun and it didn’t make much sense since the other two words were verbs. The father was a thing for that was to be avoided, outsmarted and utilized.
Febrile adjective \ˈfe-ˌbrī(-ə)l\
a: marked or caused by fever : feverish
“Rosa saw that today Magda was going to die, and at the same time a fearful joy ran in Rosa’s two palms, her fingers were on fire, she was astonished, febrile: Magda, in the sunlight, swaying on her pencil legs, was howling.”
The Shawl paragraph 10
I wasn’t sure but I thought the word was closely related to madness. She was instead feverish (not the sick kind). Rosa was overcome with great emotion and was greatly excited at Magda finally dying.
I decided to draw an eye depicting what in my opinion Sethe was seeing during the scene where she killed beloved.
In the novel they tell you she does not stare at the baby in her arms or the infant by her side (Denver and Beloved). So I decided to draw an angel to depict the freedom she thought she is giving her children. With a boy laying in blood on the far left of her pupil, an image that would be in her peripheral vision. Her pupil is constricted due to the emotions I imagine would be going through her mind for having to kill her children (fear, anxiety, etc) I also drew prominent red veins and bags under her eyes to overall make her eyes looks tired to showcase her fatigue.
Often times looking back at life you come to realize even the smallest things helped you get to where you are at this moment. The story of a character in a novel works the same way. When discussing a pivotal point in Sethe’s life that made it the way it is, it is hard to discern when that moment actually was. One could argue if she never married Hale she wouldn’t have lost her kids or killed beloved. Another might even go as far to say if she was never born all of this would have never happened.
Personally, I feel like the most important scene in beloved was the moment when the schoolteacher and his nephews came and saw beloved with her neck slit, the boys laying in blood, and Denver being thrown at the wall. “Inside, two boys bled in the sawdust and dirt at the feet of a n**** woman holding a blood-soaked child to her chest with one hand and an infant by the heels in the other. She did not look at them; she simply swung the baby toward the wall planks, missed and tried to connect a second time, when out of nowhere…the old n**** boy, still mewing, ran through the door behind them and snatched the baby from the arc of its mother’s swing” (175).
Infanticide plays a key role in this novel. It was something that was commonly done amongst slave woman to prevent their kids from enduring the same fate they did. Sethe felt the need to kill her children as she saw no other way to save them. In her eyes there was no hope left for freedom and saw this as the only way. She even says, “… couldn’t let her nor any of ‘em live under schoolteacher.” (200) Regardless of her justifications she was condemned by her neighborhood and the law. She became an outcast and no one spoke to anyone in 214.
Although she feels justified in her action she still feels guilty. Hence the need of hers to justify to beloved her reasoning behind murdering her. Beloved herself is a character the reader isn’t entirely sure about; she could be anyone. In Sethe’s case, beloved could be seen as the personification of this guilt and her need for atonement. As Sethe is constantly shown justifying her committing infanticide to beloved.
Going back to how Sethe was condemned by everyone for her crime, she set off a chain reaction; her boys left her, baby Suggs died and Denver suffered isolation and was picked on by everyone for it. Denver was/is the only child of Sethe’s who remained with her and even she wasn’t happy. Her mothers crime made her just as much of an outcast as it did her mother. Due to her peers making fun of her she began questioning Sethe about her past. Even Paul D, who came back into her life much later, left her after learning about the crime she committed.
Sethe’s whole life after killing beloved was shaped around that moment. Everything that happened to her henceforth was a reaction to that said moment. Had she not taken the initiative and killed beloved her life would be completely different. Maybe not a happy one but one without the constant guilt of having your own child’s blood on your hand.
Sethe wins, so to speak, and prevents her kids from being taken to good home.
“Right off it was clear, to schoolteacher especially, that there was nothing there to claim. The three (now four—because she’d had the one coming when she cut) pickaninnies they had hoped were alive and well enough to take back to Kentucky, take back and raise properly to do the work Sweet Home desperately needed, were not. Two were lying open-eyed in sawdust; a third pumped blood down the dress of the main one—the woman schoolteacher bragged about, the one he said made fine ink, damn good soup, pressed his collars the way he liked besides having at least ten breeding years left. But now she’d gone wild, due to the mishandling of the nephew who’d overbeat her and made her cut and run.”
She ‘saved’ her kids from the cruel fate of slavery. Which raises the question whether or not it was worth it. In the end of the novel, Beloved’s presence is gone, she helped Sethe confront her past and gave her the possibility of having a happy future with Paul D. It’s not easy losing a child but Sethe still has one left to whom she succeed in protecting from being a slave. Maybe not justifiable, but the act is understandable.
Many may argue how Sethe, prior to actually doing the act, thinks about killing her children where she gives her reasoning behind why killing them is the best decision, is what would be an important scene. Had she not had those thoughts then beloved would not have entered her life as a paranormal being. But alas, thoughts are fickle and subject to change so I decided the actual scene where the schoolteacher comes is the one that resulted in the story of beloved. Had she not killed her child she wouldn’t have demons in her past to overcome and conquer.
The most important thing in the novel is beloved’s emergence. Which probably would not have happened if the actual killing scene didn’t happen. Everything else would change the course of the story but even if those events occurred and the killing didn’t beloved would not have taken form the way she did.
The Yellow wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a tale of a woman fighting her madness. She[For the purpose of distinction we’ll call her Mary] believes there is a woman inside the wallpaper and ultimately becomes obsessed with wanting to ‘free her’. I saw the woman inside the wallpaper as the part of Mary that was actually trapped in marriage. ‘Mary’ in the beginning thought John was loving and meant well, at this moment the woman in the wallpaper didn’t exist, if anything ‘Mary’ hated the wallpaper and didn’t even want to live in the room. As her madness manifested and she became more obsessed with the wallpaper she imagined there was a woman who was there trapped, she also saw many women outside her window who ‘creep around’ and thought them to have walked out of the wallpaper. At this point she found John to be annoying.
I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition. But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself-before him, at least, and that makes me very tired….. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him
‘Mary’ begins to realize John isn’t exactly the nicest person. The woman on the other hand, since it is now that ‘Mary’ noticed her existence, would be the side of her that wouldn’t notice this neglect but rather see it as ‘Mary’ being the reason why John doesn’t spend much time home anymore.
I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did?
This was the most interesting moment, in my opinion, when the women was no longer ‘She’ but rather became ‘I’. Hence sparking my interest in writing from the so-called woman’s point of view. I didn’t see the woman as an actual physical being but rather the quarreling side of ‘Mary’; the one who wanted to remain in her barrier [wallpaper]. The way I see it the woman is probably just as intrigued by ‘Mary’ as she was by her in the actual story. I felt the woman wasn’t the personification of ‘Mary’s’ madness but rather her sanity, the madness was ‘Mary’ herself. The woman didn’t go through the same emotions that ‘Jane’ did but rather saw them happening from the sidelines and found them rather foolish and possibly wished it wasn’t happening. I felt the woman should be both intrigued and intimidated by the madness that was taking over ‘Jane’.
The woman in the wallpaper was the part of ‘Mary’ that was bound by the conforms of society at that time. This story was written in 1899 and women still didn’t have a sense of individuality without men (their husbands). Being that there was a part of her she saw in the wallpaper and frantically tried freeing it can be seen in two ways; the wallpaper woman didn’t want to be freed or didn’t feel like she needed to be freed. In my retelling the wallpaper woman was pretty much powerless she was able to voice her thoughts but couldn’t anything to control the events nor did she have the capability of reigning the madness. The madness through her eyes was an ugly thing that was taking over ‘Mary’s’ body and literally spilling out of her (into her speech, her journal, and her overall demeanor.) She (the woman) wasn’t pleased with this and though she was powerless she did give her insight about certain things that happened in the actual story. I kept the woman’s periphery limited to what a person would see standing against the wall without moving. She, just like ‘Mary’, wasn’t able to discern the others thoughts and everything was judged by examination. The woman was a threat to ‘Mary’ and vice versa. Think of those movie/tv show scenes where they show your reflection talking back to you and voicing it’s opposition, the reflection wasn’t some supernatural occurrence and nor did you imagine it but rather it was a personification of your inner voice; sometimes you can ignore it and sometimes it can become louder and overcome your will. Standing at a crossroad in life where you have to pick whether you want to continue on the path you were originally on or whether you want to deviate from it is a hard decision to make. There’s always going to be a part of you that is eager to accept the change and there’s going to be a part of you that is reluctant. You battle between these two choices until own dominates the other. In this case, I feel the original story was this inner battle woven within the psychological issue ‘Mary’ became sick from. The madness showcased in the retelling however was not the possible psychological problem of ‘Mary’s’ but rather the desire to break conformity. The woman saw this to be a threatening ugly thing that was slowly creeping out of ‘Mary’ and she didn’t like it one bit.
I kept the original ending of the story because in both point of views these two opposing sides become one after the wallpaper/barrier was broken. It seemed wrong to change any of that so I left it the way it was. The ending was what ties both point of views together and makes them one it also showcases that both the woman and ‘Mary’ are actually the same person. To change it would give the story a different meaning and give you the sense that there was an actual woman.
You can obviously see this story in another way. You would perhaps think that the woman wanted to be free but didn’t have the means to do so but then ‘Mary’s’ madness wouldn’t have shaped itself the way it did. Or, the woman could have just been a figment of her imagination instead of a personification of the side of her that opposed to her desire to escape. This was just the way I read the story and what I thought was happening.
There’s a woman in the room, although oddly familiar she is still a stranger. It is very intriguing watching her struggling to break free of the strangling ropes that bind us, how silly it is seeing her indulge her madness.
John, that is the name spoken from her lips, this man he loves her, or so it seems. I hear bits and pieces of their conversations, sometimes they make sense sometimes not. She shares her fears he shoots them down, he tries to save her. Is that not love? Even so, I can see the cracks starting to form on her countenance as she continues to divulge into her madness, which is slowly becoming more apparent.
He says, “There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so? ” She quiets down, but it doesn’t look as if she’s fighting her thoughts, she entertains them, feeds them. Foolish girl! Can’t you see there is no breaking free?
She writes a lot; I always see her writing in secrecy with the madness creeping out of her and seeping into the pages, her foolhardy thoughts out in the open for anyone to stumble upon. The cracks are quickly spreading all over her frail body, I am legitimately concerned seeing her thoughts pushing to break free to pierce into the room and consume the air.
She is much calmer during the daytime and more frantic at night. At night she sees me; am I a threat to her or is she a threat to me? John isn’t around much anymore. Can’t she see she is neglecting her duty of love for him? There is another woman, John’s sister, keeping her keen eyes on her, Jennie. Can Jennie see the madness that I can see in her clearly now, it’s a shade darker than any black I have ever seen. It swells inside her, building momentum and seeping out of the now countless cracks.
The black has now completely consumed her seeping out in a frantic rhythm. She’s coming closer, what is this? I cannot help but laugh loudly, I reckon she must have heard it. She is attempting to tear the barrier away. She is indeed the ‘Silly goose’ John claims her to be. This barrier is unbreakable. I will not allow her to consume me, I am happy where I am. This place is where I must remain, it is the only way for me to fulfill my purpose. For the life of me I cannot recall what this purpose is but I must remain here. I am sure of it. She promises to try again. There aren’t any worries on my part, she will never succeed. They never do.
She’s more frantic than ever, peeling off more of the barrier. My pleas are fallen to deaf ears as she desperately tries to break the barrier. Her duties, my duties long forgotten. She is me. I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try. Besides I wouldn’t do it. Of course not. I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued. I don’t like to look out of the windows even- there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did? But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope – you don’t get me out in the road there ! I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard! It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!
I don’t want to go outside. I won’t, even if Jennie asks me to. For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow. But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way. Why there’s John at the door!
It is no use, young man, you can’t open it! How he does call and pound! Now he’s crying for an axe. It would be a shame to break down that beautiful door! “John dear!” said I in the gentlest voice, “the key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf!”
That silenced him for a few moments. Then he said–very quietly indeed, “Open the door, my darling!” “I can’t,” said I. “The key is down by the front door under a plantain leaf!” And then I said it again, several times. very gently and slowly, and said it so often that he had to go and see, and he got it of course, and came in.
He stopped short by the door. “What is the matter?” he cried. “For God’s sake, what are you doing! ” I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder.
“I’ve got out at last,” said I, ” in spite of you and Jane? And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back! ” Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!
Gallantry noun \ˈga-lən-trē\
a : an act of marked courtesy
b : courteous attention to a lady
“And yet,” said he, with the gallantry of a young politician. “for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies?”
A Jury of Her Peers page 265
Initially I was thinking of gallant where it it means brave. This made no sense to me “…a gallantry of a young politician…” Young politicians are rather foolish as opposed to brave. The other definition of gallantry made much more sense in this case.
Importunities noun \ˌim-pər-ˈtü-nə-tē, –ˈtyü-\
a: an importunate (troubesembly urgent/annoyance) request or demand
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s importunities.
The Story of An Hour paragraph 10
Importunities looks like the word important and although the of the words definition meant annoying urgency I thought it just meant her sisters urgency was important.
Wares noun \ˈwer\
a : manufactured articles, products of art or craft, or farm produce : goods —often used in combination <tinware
b : an article of merchandise
In the street below a peddler was crying his wares.
The Story of An Hour paragraph 5
Thinking a peddler is a man peddling a boat him screaming his ‘wares’ to me meant that he was screaming at people to beware. Turns out a peddler is a merchant and he was letting people know what merchandise he has.
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