A Literary Analysis of Julia Alvarez’s Novel ¡Yo! The character of Yolanda Garcia, also called as Yo, in Julia Alvarez’s novel has a lot of different facets to her. She can be analyzed either as a woman, or as a role model. Yo wrote a fictional novel that makes the characters out of the people who knows her and people she knows. As a result, those people found themselves a little expose and decided to tell their own side story about her.
A Slight Hysterical Tendency – An Analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper Fiction by standard definition is a body of literary work that is not real, or is imagined. So what do you get when you have a story that is in fact fiction, but is so personal to the author that is could almost be considered autobiographical? You get the fictional story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The story about a woman who is suffering from postpartum psychosis is parallel to the difficulties that Gilman faced in her own life. At a time in history when women were thought to be hysterical and not taken seriously especially in the area of mental health, Gilman bravely brought the topic to the surface in a dark, but truthful manner. Her use of imagery and personification throughout the writing draws the reader into the sick mind of a young mother struggling to find herself again and broaches the issue of feminism.
As an example two influential short stories will be discussed in depth in order to shed light into the lives of the two authors and their stories. The short stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) and Angela Carter (1940–1992) both sideway the same idea; the confinement of women in particular roles and positions in both personal and professional lives, posed on them by patriarchal figures. Toril Moi quotes in her examination of feministic criticism, Sexual/Textual Politics (2002), Elaine Showalter’s idea that “women writers should not be studied as a distinct group on the assumption that they write alike, or even display stylistic resemblances distinctively feminine” (Moi, 2002: 49), which comes across when reading the two stories which are stylistically already very different. It might be so that a feminist reader of both times (there’s some 80 years difference between the two stories) did not only want to see her own experiences mirrored in fiction, but strived to identify with strong, impressive female characters (Moi, 2002: 46), and looked for role-models that would instil positive sense of feminine identity by portraying women as self-actualising strong identities who were not dependent on men (Moi, 2002, 46). The two stories bring out two female characters, very different by position and character; the other a new mother, scared and confused of her own role, and the other a young newly-wed girl, still a child, being fouled by a much older man, mainly as a mark of his authority over women in general.
After this shock, Mrs. Mallard died (DiYanni, 2007). The point I believe the author was trying to put across is that women can be so troubled or mistreated that unfortunate events to their spouse or significant other can bring about relief. Many authors try to be relevant in their writing so that the readers can relate to or understand what the author is trying to relay in their stories. These examples show how relevant most authors are in their writing and how they reflect communities that they come from or communities that they know about.
In Katherine Wilson’s “Dude Looks Like a Lady,” she begins with a powerful introduction saying “this is about hair, breasts, and identity” (Wilson 21), insinuating it is going to be a gender identity piece. Reading more of the first page, you assume the thesis is about the common misconceptions of how a woman is supposed to look and how not looking that way could take away from a woman being a woman. Wilson gives the example of her hair being buzzed and people looking at her differently. Although she tries to argue the hardships of not looking like the normal female, Wilson’s argument fails to meet the rest of her story. She claims her argument is about “hair, breasts, and identity,” she is really just ranting and raving her being disrespected and her own issues of being black.
Skeeter’s mom could be considered a bit sympathetic character from the story. A major scene that can explain this would be when Constantine’s daughter showed up at her house while the Daughters of the American Republic were there. They disliked the fact that Constantine’s daughter disobeyed her, so they pressured Charlotte to do something about it. You can easily see Charlotte’s hesitation her face; and even though she didn’t want to, she had to fire Constantine in order to look good in front the Daughters of the American Republic. 4.
Works Cited Kilbourne, Jean. “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence. INQUIRY to Academic Writing Second Edition. Pg. 457-479 Print.
Our narrator starts out being credible, and she tells us how she does not like the wallpaper at all. But as the story progresses, we can see how our narrator changes. An example of this is tells us how the pattern becomes clearer every day, “it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit.”(p.8). At this point she starts seeing various things in the wallpaper, but she still dislikes it, however later on we can see how her madness progresses and becomes a serious issue.
People often when being in a conflict with their society, usually back down because it is on person against a large amount of people but sometimes that is not the case. In the novel The Scarlett Letter, The Puritans decided that it would be a good idea to have Hester stand on the scaffold so that everyone in the town can witness her being punished. Hester was of course extremely embarrassed, but she knew she had to be strong and not to be let seen weak by the hypocrites who are the Puritans. In the novel Hawthorne quotes “the
Monica Norris LIT2020 Jacob Kelly Coincidence or Comparison? ! Seeing and obsessing over the idea that there is a woman trapped behind ugly wallpaper is not a habit that many people would consider “normal.” Perhaps there is more behind the short story The Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman .While it may seem that narrator is just a fictional, and mentally ill character, many details included in the story can be connected to the authors experiences in her real life such as the narrators mental illness, the treatments she received, and her relationships. The connection between Gilman and her character can also perhaps assist to explain why she lends herself to a feminist style of writing. !