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The yellow wallpaper significance of the setting
The yellow wallpaper significance of the setting
Analytical essay about setting of the yellow wallpaper
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Varying Shades of Insanity in Yellow Wallpaper, A Worn Path, and Mulatto
The human psyche is a very complex, intricate thing. Why does one person act one way, while another acts completely differently? I have read three stories that have given me insight on this subject. They are "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty, and Mulatto by Langston Hughes. In each of these stories, the main character exhibits a peculiar personality trait, but each stems from a different experience.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" is a story of a married woman, Jane, who suffers from a debilitating nervous condition. This story is based on a cure for the disease, called the "rest cure." Dr. S. Weir Mitchell developed this treatment which required confining the patient to a hotel, hospital, or a residence that was isolated from much human contact, such as the one described in the story. The patient was to have complete bed rest, a drastic change in diet, and sometimes even electric shock therapy. Charlotte Perkins Gilman had experienced this treatment in her own life, so she had first-hand knowledge of what she was writing about in this story (Gilman 491).
The setting of this story is a room in a house in which Jane lives for a summer with her husband John, who is a physician. The room is large, almost the size of the entire floor. She is on medication, "phosphates or phosphites-- whichever it is," for her condition, and she has been forbidden to work (Gilman 491). Unfortunately, she was also not allowed to write, which was a deprivation of the only outlet she had. Therefore, on most days, she spent her time in that room with nothing to do except look at the four walls. In the beginning of the story we can sense that maybe she is a little crazy. She describes the house as if it is a castle. Then she says that "there is something strange about the house-- I can feel it" (Gilman 492). Next, we learn of the intriguing yellow wallpaper.
The wallpaper, at first, is her nemesis. She begs John to repaper the room; it scares her. "The paper looks to her as if it knew what a vicious influence it had" (Gilman 494). In her perception, the paper has eyes and exerts some sort of power over her.
The book began with Paul Revere’s America. Paul Revere’s real name was Apollos Riviore. Paul Reveres name was later changed because of it being too hard to pronounce. He was born on the small island of Guernsey in the English channels but at age 12, he sailed to Boston on November 15, 1715. By 1722, he was a goldsmith in Boston. In 1729, Paul Revere married a named Deborah Hitchborn. He worked as an artisan and a silversmith. During this time, he was known to have amazing skills in both jobs. One of Paul Revere’s best designs was his print of the Boston Massacre in 1770. It helped to create an image of British tyranny and American virtue that still shapes memory of the massacre.
...did through his poems. Although the themes of slavery, past and longing were depicted in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poems, he provided a different aspect in each one; portraying ‘A Drowsy Day’ of a lonely reminiscent narrator, who was trapped in their confined home as well as their mind, being unable to escape from the constant swirl of memories. He uses ‘An Old Memory’ to convey the past as positive and full of hope, although disappointed by his present day, the past remained to have a ‘subtle charm’ – contrastingly in ‘Sympathy’, the poet describes the past as ‘cruel’, thus portraying it in a more dark and unwelcome light. Arthur Miller portrays the past as full of regret for Biff, but also of ambition for his father. All of these texts portrayed the past as a place where identity was stronger, however it could be argued that the past was where slaves had no identity.
In Paul Fussel’s book Class, he proposes a new sort of class of people, those who don’t fit into the nine categories he has discussed previously in the book (top out-of-sight, upper, upper middle, middle, high proletarian, mid-proletarian, low proletarian, destitute, and bottom out-of-sight). This new class he calls “X people” and describes them as curious, creative, talented, irreverent, and self-sufficient. Those who belong to this new class do not care which class one comes from and do not care what others think of them and their relationships with people outside their class.
John was a talented youngster. At the tender age of 6 he was studying music. He learned to play many types of instruments; the
Sporting is one of the universal activities that brings people from different backgrounds together and is viewed as an income generating activity that creates revenue for the participants as well as the location where the activities are held. The NCAA Final Four Basketball Tournament is one of the most anticipated sporting events in the US that attracts a high number of fans in the cities where it is held. Before the Final Four is held in given location, it is imperative for the organizers to have a detailed understanding of the venue so that they can introduce marketing strategies that are in line with the demands of the fans (Snipes & Ingram, 2007). The host committee is charged with the responsibility to come introduce an exhilarating experience for the locals and visitors. Owing to the interest generated
2. Strand was the first photographer to acheive a really decisive break with pictorialism and apply some of the lessons of the new modern art to photography.
Paul Laurence Dunbar is one of the most influential African American poets to gain a nationwide reputation. Dunbar the son of two former slaves; was born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio. His work is truly one of a kind, known for its rich, colorful language, encompassed by the use of dialect, a conversational tune, and a brilliant rhetorical structure. The style of Dunbar’s poetry includes two distinct voices; the standard English of the classical poet and the evocative dialect of the turn of the century black community in America. His works include a large body of dialect poems, standard English poems, essays, novels, and short stories. The hardships encountered by members of is race along with the efforts of African Americans to achieve equality in America were often the focus of his writings. http://www.dunbarsite.org/
Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper," she submitted her essay to Dr. Mitchell. He changed his treatment after reading the story (footnote in Gilman 431). "The Yellow
kitchen. The message of the poem is of praise for simplicity of spirit and the
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening tale of a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Set during the late 1890s, the story shows the mental and emotional results of the typical "rest cure" prescribed during that era and the narrator’s reaction to this course of treatment. It would appear that Gilman was writing about her own anguish as she herself underwent such a treatment with Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell in 1887, just two years after the birth of her daughter Katherine. The rest cure that the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" describes is very close to what Gilman herself experienced; therefore, the story can be read as reflecting the feelings of women like herself who suffered through such treatments. Because of her experience with the rest cure, it can even be said that Gilman based the narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" loosely on herself. But I believe that expressing her negative feelings about the popular rest cure is only half of the message that Gilman wanted to send. Within the subtext of this story lies the theme of oppression: the oppression of the rights of women especially inside of marriage. Gilman was using the woman/women behind the wallpaper to express her personal views on this issue.
lead to him starting his own band. This was all at the age of seventeen.
Strand was one of the first photographers to take up the visual problems and approaches which he saw in modern art. By 1915 this was showing clearly in his work, with an interest in geometrical forms, patterns, rhythm, space and the division of the frame; the pictures were like a knife cutting through the butter of Pictorialism . Stieglitz greeted this with enthusiasm, showing it in the gallery and making it the feature of the final issues of Camerawork. (Web Galleries)
According to the Poetry Foundation, Dunbar uses his form a=or writing to give an “ impressive representation” of black life in the south. The first lines of the poem, “We is gathahed hyeah, my brothahs, In di howlin' wildaness” (622) translates to We is gathered here, my brothers, in this hollering wilderness. The spelling of the words and the dialect in the poem make the reader sound more like the African American slave during the period and makes the poem more realistic. Once the reader first begins to read it seems to be that they are having a hard time understanding, but once they continue, they will notice that the writing, spelling, and rhyming style is unique to show the flow of words. In another line, “An' de lan' shall hyeah his thundah, Lak a blas' f'om Gab'el's ho'n” (623), it translates to And the land shall hear his thunder like a blast from Gabriel's horn. Here shows how African American spoke and pronounced their words like
Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper in 1890 about her experience in a psychiatric hospital. The doctor she had prescribed her “the rest cure” to get over her condition (Beekman). Gilman included the name of the sanitarium she stayed at in the piece as well which was named after the doctor that “treated” her. The short story was a more exaggerated version of her month long stay at Weir Mitchell and is about a woman whose name is never revealed and she slowly goes insane under the watch of her doctor husband and his sister (The Yellow Wallpaper 745). Many elements of fiction were utilized by Gilman in this piece to emphasize the theme freedom and confinement. Three of the most important elements are symbolism, setting and character.