Tag Archives: “The Cottagette”

Homework, Week 5

“THE YELLOW WALLPAPER” AND “THE COTTAGETTE”

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“The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Cottagette” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are stories you can say are the opposites of each other. One is set in a Utopia and the other in a Dystopia. In other words, one is positive and the other is negative. “The Cottagette” is more of a Utopian story due to the relaxed feeling you get from listening to the narrator’s happy lifestyle/point of view. “The Yellow Wallpaper” on the other hand is more Dystopian and involves a much more darker stance. This story is covered with emotions and the depressing life the narrator is living. The question however is what defines the two stories as a Utopian/Dystopian story. The answer to that is in the setting.

Let’s start off with the more depressing story. “The Yellow Wallpaper” shows clear signs of a setting that involves depression. One main setting feature that defines how the story is more negative is right in the beginning of the story. “A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house….” Judging from this one sentence, you already know things aren’t gonna look good. The scenery also shows darkness. Examples include the broken greenhouses and the lack of renovations in the house. Scent also is an attribute of setting. Within the mansion, lies a scent that “creeps all over the house.” Along with that scent, the weather is terrible with fog and rain that lasted the whole week. Pretty much my point here is the setting of this story is similar to something you will see in a scary movie.

Now let’s move to something more happier. “The Cottagette” is the opposite of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and is definitely for a fact much more pleasant and happier. Happiness is written all over this story. Anyways, the setting of this story is as the title says. We have here a cottage that is “far too small for a house, too pretty for a hut, too unusual for a cottage.” It may be unusual but hey, at least she likes it as seen when Malda says “”The Cottagette” I loved unreservedly.” as she listens to the music playing. The cottage was also “Little and new and clean, smelling only of its fresh-planed boards–they hadn’t even stained it.” Speaking of music, the musical scenery I would say plays a major role in the story because it adds more joyful thrill and enlightenment.

In the end, it’s obvious to say that these two stories are complete opposites. One is positive and the other is negative. One is dark and the other is light. The setting between the two stories define the differences between them. The main point is, the setting in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is something you’ll find in a scary movie, and the setting in “The Cottagette” is more something you’ll find in a happy romance.

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Homework, Week 5

Homework #5, “The Cottagette” and “The Yellow Wallaper”

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In “The Cottagette,” the second and third paragraphs identify the setting of the story, “”Cottagette, by all means,” said Lois, seating herself on a porch chair. “But it is larger than it looks, Mr. Mathews. How do you like it, Malda?” I was delighted with it. More than delighted. Here this tiny shell of fresh unpainted wood peeped out from under the trees, the only house in sight except the distant white specks on far off farms, and the little wandering village in the river-threaded valley. It sat right on the turf, –no road, no path even, and the dark woods shadowed the back windows.”

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the second and third paragraphs identify the setting. “A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house and reach the height of romantic felicity – but that would be asking too much of fate. Still I will proudly declare there is something queer about it.”

In both stores, we have a house as the settings, but two very different houses. In “The Cottagette,” the narrator clearly is fond of the cottage. I feel that she admires its isolation, while in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator senses that there is something wrong about the house. The narrators set the tone for the setting in these passages which help shape the stories differently. The cottage is described as a delightful place, and so was the story, ending with the narrator getting a marriage proposal from the man that she loved. The colonial mansion was described, by the narrator, as a haunted house. This story was not as delightful as “The Cottagette.” In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator drivers herself insane from the obsession she had with the wallpaper, where she thought she saw a woman who was trapped behind bars and tries to escape.

 

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Week 5

Blogging on “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and “The Cottagette”

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Apologies for the lateness of these instructions. Here are a few options for your posts for this week. Choose one:

  • Choose two passages that epitomize the narrator of either of these stories. Explain what you understand about the passage and how it instructs you to read the narrator and her narration.
  • Consider the setting of these stories. Find a passage from each that identifies the setting, and compare how the settings help shape each into the drastically different stories that they are.
  • Using specific quotations from the story to support your claims, compare either or both of these stories in their depiction of marriage with any of the other marriages depicted in our readings this semester. Do you attribute the differences only to characterization and plot, or are there other ways these distinct situations are expressed?
  • Is there something else you’re eager to write about regarding “The Yellow Wall-Paper” or “The Cottagette”? Write it–but be sure to use quotations from the story or stories in your post.

Remember to follow our blogging guidelines, and categorize your post  Week 5 under Homework. Use any tags you find appropriate.

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Glossary

Demurred

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Demurred (intransitive verb): 1 archaic: delay, hesitate

2: to file a demurrer

3: to take exception: object—often used with to or at (Merriam-Webster)

Found on Page 53, paragraph 2 of “The Cottagette”–>One day he came around early and asked me to go up Hugh’s Peak with him. It was a lovely climb and took all day. 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 believe this word in the quote means that Malda hesitated to go out with Mr. Matthews because she was mostly concerned about the home being washed by another woman. Previously, it states that Malda preferred to wash the dishes by herself, so bringing someone else to the house made her apprehensive because she did not know how this woman was going to clean her home.

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Glossary

Domesticity

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Domesticity (noun): life inside a home: the activities of a family or of the people who share a home (Merriam-Webster)

Found on Page 50, paragraph 11 of “The Cottagette”–>”Don’t be foolish, child,” said Lois, “this is serious. 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.”

I believe this word in the quote means that Lois was telling Malda that in order for Ford Matthews to love her or marry her, she would always have to be a woman that was fervently involved in the duties of a homemaker such as cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, and doing anything that involved the needs of the family.

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Discussion

Discussion: “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and “The Cottagette”

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In class yesterday, we began talking about “Young Goodman Brown” but didn’t really get to “The Metamorphosis” at all. For our discussion this week, I’d like to offer the option that we try what Gavin suggested in class yesterday, that we return to previous discussions, in addition to starting the next discussion here.

To that end, please feel free to contribute something new to the discussion on “The Metamorphosis.”

Next, please contribute to our discussion here about “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and “The Cottagette” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

One topic for discussion is to comment on the kinds of narrators we find in these two short stories. In addition to identifying them using the terminology we have discussed on the site and in class, there is another aspect of the narrator we can think about: is the narrator of either story a reliable narrator or an unreliable narrator?

Another topic for discussion: we might use the words utopia and dystopia to describe these two short stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that we read. What do those words mean? Which story is utopian and which is dystopian? Why?

As always, you should spend 75 minutes reading the online discussion and contributing to it. Your work should be in the form of a comment either to the discussion post, or to another comment in the thread.

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