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Feminism | Women | One Word | Cut

TWO PART READING RESPONSE: The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)


The Yellow Wallpaper is a very interesting story. Talks about a mentally ill woman and her husband who is a doctor. As a doctor he convinced her that she needs to rest and to stay in the room in order to get well.“ The doctor” don’t listen to her when she said to him that she is feeling better he never heard her, she wanted to change the room because she thought that the room was a place that gives her depression, and make her feel sick. She seems like a woman completely depending on her husband. The things get worse when she start to obsess with the wallpaper. Maybe the wallpaper wants to represent the time or the way  the women’s want to escape for the “control” of the men. Maybe the wallpaper want to represent also the difficult life of a woman, who doesn’t have voice and who can’t control their life’s .He made her believe that she is sick, maybe that’s because he wanted to control her life. He is more like a doctor than her husband to her.

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Two-part reading response: " The Yellow Wallpaper" (Charlotte Perkins Stetson).

Two-part reading response:  The Yellow Wallpaper

In the Yellow Wallpaper the narrator is a woman who suffers from depression following the birth of her child. Her husband John, who is a physician prescribes her rest and takes her to a house in the countryside as her treatment requires, living in peace and fresh air. John thinks that this is the best thing for her. He prohibits her from writing because this leads her to increase her imagination. She is not allowed to go out and she cannot stand to visit her baby, her husband has decided a nurse to take care baby. So, the narrator initially heads her husband’s advice. Now she spends all day in a room and there is Jane, John’s sister who takes care after narrator because John is all day out dealing with his cases. She stands alone in the ugly room, staring at the room’s yellow wallpaper which leads her condition deteriorates. She does not like that house , it is too big, especially the room, he wants to leave the house but John makes her believe that this was the perfect place for her treatment and he cannot leave because he has rent the house now and because there is the place where he works. The narrator is forced by her husband to believe she is really sick and cannot stand around people, she is isolated from the society, but she really want to enjoy fresh air or going to visit her cousins. She is really disturbed by the yellow wallpaper in the bedroom because she identifies the woman in the wallpaper with herself, feeling like in the prison, trying to escape to find themselves. Finally in an effort to release the woman, the narrator locked the door, tears down the wallpaper. When John comes to take her home, he finds her creeping around the room and faints.

Reading the first lines makes me think about a woman who falls in depression as much woman suffers following the birth of their child, and her husband who fortunately is a physician takes care after his woman. He is doing the best for his wife but in fact he is doing better for his benefits. I do not think that living a life where I am told what to wear, what to eat, what to think and how to act is for my best or just because the person who is forced me really loves me. Here we are talking about a couple who are married and the husband, John, acts like a mother or father with their children rather than with his wife. She is forced to do what her husband wants just because he knows what the best is for her and because he loves her. In the first line to the first page the narrator state “John laughs at me, of course, one expects that in a marriage”. Of course not, everyone’s expectations in a marriage are quite different, you expect a person not to judge you, let you do things that makes you happy without preventing your dreams and imaginations as John is doing , and makes you feel comfort, protected and staying with you when you need. John as a husband expect a just to have a housewife but this is like being a slave for a man and there is mentioned John’s sister, Jane as a perfect housekeeper and nurse and hoped for no better profession . This is the best profession according man, but this is not right to expect women just to be good in house chores and taking care after children.  At some point the narrator claims “He is very careful and loving and hardly lets me stir without a special direction” but this is not a sign of love or caring, unfortunately, this is just a way to say that women cannot do anything without the approval of their husbands. Love is just a justification to let women to think that this is done for the sake of love. None has the right to state that women are not as smart and powerful as man to act how they want. John is doing that because he uses her critic health condition to force his wife to stay in bed and to be quiet to become better and return home; by doing this he is controlling her life even more. Fortunately, in the end she realized who she was. Looking the woman in the wallpaper she gained her identity and her self-confidence. This comes to the conclusion that just because you are a woman didn’t mean that you have to act a certain way. 

Tow part reading response: “The yellow wallpaper” (Charlotte Perkins Stetson)

Plot

“The yellow wallpaper”, which takes place in the late 1800, is set on an isolated country where the narrator and her husband, John, a physician, are living for the summer. The narrator has given birth and has come down with a ‘nervous condition’. She describes her situation, which involves the elimination of all stimuli, including interaction with people, writing and even seeing her own child. Her husband’s sister has come to help her with domestic tasks. Writing secretly, the narrator tells the story of her isolation in the room in which she passes all time. The room has shabby yellow wallpaper with a complex pattern she finds irritating. Weeks pass, and she finds that her anxiety and depression have increased. She asks John to leave the house, but he doesn’t accept her request. He takes all decisions for everything, and takes care and loves the narrator. The narrator’s treatment requires that she do almost nothing active, and she is forbidden from working and writing. She is focused on the wallpaper in her room, which begins to seem ugly and oddly threatening. As her obsession grows, the sub-pattern of the wallpaper become clear and begins to resemble a woman ‘stooping down and creeping’ behind the main pattern.  The wallpaper dominates the narrator’s imagination.  She becomes possessive and secretive, hiding her interest in the paper. Mistaking the narrator’s fixation, John thinks she is getting better.  The narrator suspects that John and his sister are aware of her obsession, and she resolves to destroy the wallpaper. The next day when she was alone, she tears at the paper in order to free the woman, who seems to struggle in order to come out.  As she completes this task, she begins to identify herself as the woman, and creeps along the floor, following a layer on the wallpaper. John finds her in this state and faints. She creeps over him and continues on her path.

My opinion

Imaging living a life where you are told what to do and how to act, that is how women used to live their life, being told what to do all the time, during 1990’s. At the beginning of the story the narrator is stuck in a world where women are looked down on. I think that the reason why the writer does not refer to the narrator with a name is because she represents all women, who can identify themselves in this story. The narrator’s husband acts more like a father or mother figure; he shows his love in a dysfunctional way. He takes all the decision instead of his wife and treats her like an object. In this way the story gives a bad message, men take the decisions and women have to obey these decisions, which can be taken as a good one from the others. The yellow wallpaper in the narrator’s room is a clear representation of women in that general time trying to escape from what society is presenting them to be. This clearly represents the difficult life of women. The best part is the end of the story when the narrator tries to help the women in the wallpaper, because this mean that women help each other and together they can change the isolate life they lead.  Reading this story is like watching a horror film, but compering the way that women were treated before with the way they are treated now, makes me hope that things are improving for the better. We are all equal.

TWO PART READING RESPONSE: THE YELLOW WALLPAPER (CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN)

Plot
" The yellow wallpaper " is a book written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This is a story of a women and her husband named John. The narrator begins her journal by marveling at the grandeur of the house and grounds her husband has taken for their summer vocation. She describes it in romantic terms or even a haunted house and wonders how they were able to afford it. She is suffering form "nervous depression" and of her marriage. She complains that her husband John, who is also her doctor belittles both her illness and thoughts in general. Her treatment requires that she do almost nothing active, and also forbidden from working and writing. The narrator begins describing house. She decribes elements such "ring and things" also the yellow wallpaper in the bedroom, which is strange. Soon the yellow wallpaper dominates the narrator's imagination. By the end of the story she is hopelessly insane.
Reading Response
This is a story of a women who suffers from depression after giving birth to her child. Even the closest people for her as her husband John do not let her take care for her child and she is used to stay all the day and night in her bedroom alone. The significance of the story introduces the issues of 'women' in society. The most important theme of the story is "Feminism" which brought a little bit of the idea of gender equality in 19th century. In this story the women is limitied to do things hy her husband. It was that time when 'men' had the "power". In my opinion, even the mentality of differing women from man is present should change. We are equal.

TWO PART READING RESPONSE: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

READING RESPONSE

A reader response about Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" published first in the New England Magazine.

The yellow wall paper is an interesting story which has a lot to discuss. The story talks about a mentally ill woman and that her husband has to take care after her. As a doctor John has convinced his wife that she needs to rest in order to get rid of her depression, and that 'as a doctor' he knows well how to heal her. The situation worsened in the moment that  her husband John didn't heard her ideas on feeling a way better, such as writing or hanging out would be a better cure for her mental state. He never heard her even when she asked to change her room which was her biggest problem, just because he thought that her requests were coming by her depression, strange ones for him, but completely needed for her. It seems like woman when they got married start to depend completely to their man, like they can guide her as their own, as a leader. He was leading her till she started to believe that she was sick for real and powerless enough to control her own life ,where it completely violates her rights on making decisions about herself. Even thought she continues feeling scared by her room especially the yellow wallpaper, he dismisses her fears. I think she became more obsessed with the wallpaper till she started to distrust her husband ,till she..became hopelessly insane. And I wonder why John as 'being a doctor' didn't knew that the yellow color abrasive when overused, and that gives rise to fear, anxiety, and provoke depression. She closed the story by telling her husband "I've got out at least,in spite of you and Jane, And I've pulled off most of the paper so you can't pull be back!" And with this phrase I think that she is saying both of them that she is free and that his way of healing her failed. Coming in a conclusion that even 'SHE' knows her way, her best. Even 'SHE' has a voice to be heard, an idea to putted on action, a thought, a feeling as a Man, and that they should be treated equal as individuals, human beings. 

TWO PART READING RESPONSE: The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)

 Plot

In The yellow wallpaper we peek into a fragment of a diary. The narrator and protagonist tell us that for three months and due to her illness, she has rented a house on the outskirts of a city with her sister-in-law, her husband and her newborn son.

She has an affectation in the nerves for which her husband, a doctor, has prescribed absolute rest and isolation of all possible stimulations. Therefore, they are installed in a spacious room actually their children’s room. She spends her hours in a bed, with no distraction, only watching the wallpaper: an intricate yellow paper with filigree with no sense or symmetry.

The protagonist seems to start obsessing with that role that in its idiosyncrasy, is oppressive, unsettling and steals her sleep. Understanding the drawing of the paper, which is torned in some areas, occupies her hours and absorbs all her energy till a delirious final.

   

 My opinion

The protagonist tells us everything, both for what she writes and for what she is silent.

The few characters that appear in the story are described between the lines, but in an obvious way, especially through the narrator's silences.

Gilman describes, what depression is like. She does not name it, but she is very aware of what she feels and has a great intuition of what she needs to recover. However, the men of her life, mainly her husband ,the doctor, decide not to listen to her and thus,guide her as if she were an irresponsible child, again and again towards the yellow wallpaper.

The story is not closed and does not provide answers: does the protagonist go crazy and are all her imaginations?

I Think that “The yellow wallpaper”, in spite of being so brief, is a masterful story; concise and brilliant.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a great author, 

in a subtle but accurate way. She focuses on a few delicate topics: the submission to the husband's wishes, the presence of a baby that can not be occupied, the inability of her husband to understand why she is not happy .