The story begins in a mental hospital or a sanatorium where Holden is describing the sequence of events that led to his current psychological state to a psychiatrist. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, tells a story of a female narrator, whose name is unknown, that is suffering from depression or a “nervous condition”. Not only does she suffer from depression, but she suffers from her marriage as well. Her husband, who is also her doctor, belittles her and her condition .She and her husband leave to stay in an estate over the summer for vacation and a place for her to get better. The room she stays in has yellow wallpaper that will later contribute to her psychological downfall along with the oppression felt from her environment.
Gilman uses symbols to explain the how women are trapped in domestic life. The symbol that Gilman uses the yellow wallpaper in the room she is confined in. At first, the wallpaper is just awful as she says “The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow.” She is disgusted by it and understands why children, who have been in this room, would want to tear it down. Then, the wallpaper becomes a point of curiosity as she wants to discover the organization of the pattern. She said, “...and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion,” as if the wallpaper was made with symmetry in mind.
The yellow wallpaper In the story, wallpaper, a usually feminine, floral decoration on the interior of walls, is a symbol of female imprisonment within the domestic sphere. Over the course of the story, the wallpaper becomes a text of sorts through which the narrator exercises her literary imagination and identifies with a feminist double figure. When John curbs her creativity and writing, the narrator takes it upon herself to make some sense of the wallpaper. She reverses her initial feeling of being watched by the wallpaper and starts actively studying and decoding its meaning. She untangles its chaotic pattern and locates the figure of a woman struggling to break free from the bars in the pattern.
The cast is comprised of only seven characters. First there is Charles and his current wife Ruth. His deceased first wife is named Elvira; the psychic who causes it all is Madame Arcati, and a sophisticated couple, the Bradman’s, who are guests at the séance. There is also Edith who serves only as a comic convenience, but is the unseen maid in the house of Charles and Ruth. The main conflict in “Blithe Spirit” is a conflict of love; the ghost of Elvira haunting the couple causes tension between them that brings up deeper problems of the couple.
Analytical paper # 2 Due: October 24, 2012 “The Yellow Wallpaper” Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the story of a young woman whose creative appeal and self-expression are suppressed by her society and her marriage. The short story is told by the narrator through her diary, which she describes as an exemption of her thoughts. The narrator is apparently artistic and creative as can be seen through her animated descriptions of the house her husband John has rented. The narrator includes representations of the yellow wallpaper in the upstairs nursery where she and her husband sleep at night. The wallpaper is used characterically to reflect the marriage the narrator finds herself ambushed inside.
Flowers in the Attic is a 1979 novel by V. C. Andrews. It is the first book in the Dollanganger Series. The novel is written in the first person from the point of view of Cathy Dollanganger. Cathy, Chris, Cory and Carrie are forced to go live in Charlottesville, Virginia after a sudden death of their father. Sadly their mother Corrine facing financial destitution has no other option than to agree to her children been locked in the attic of her parents home away from society.
The narrator’s obsession with the wallpaper that surrounds her bedroom begins merely as intrigue and climaxes to a point where reality and what she imagines within the wallpaper becomes blurred. This climax represents her journey from rationality to insanity as the wallpaper becomes more twisted and alive around her. This wallpaper ultimately represents the oppression of her mind that is being caused by her post partum depression, as well as her husband’s ineffective healing methods. At first she finds the wallpaper being “one of those sprawling, flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (Gilman 988). This could be a representation of the beginning of her depression which was initially just an annoyance to her which she does not fully understand.
She has lived on the seventh floor of the Martinique for two years. When introduced the first thing Laura asks of Kozol is that he read her a letter from the hospital. The letter, which is weeks old, states her eldest son has tested positive for lead poisoning, and she should bring him to the hospital for treatment immediately. Laura had left the letter in a pile of unreadable papers. Laura’s room at the Martinique is almost unlivable.
Eventually, the sub-pattern comes into focus as a desperate woman, constantly crawling and stooping, looking for an escape from behind the main pattern, which has come to resemble the bars of a cage. The narrator sees this cage as festooned with the heads of many women, all of whom were strangled as they tried to escape. Clearly, the wallpaper represents the structure of family, medicine, and tradition in which the narrator finds herself trapped. Wallpaper is domestic and humble, and Gilman skillfully uses this nightmarish, hideous paper as a symbol of the domestic life that traps so many women. Almost every aspect of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is ironic in some way.
Edgar Allen Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” is one of his most excellent pieces. It’s a story about an unnamed character who visits a longtime friend’s home after receiving a letter. He immediately notices that the house gives an evil vibe, and the day itself is gloomy. Throughout his entrance into the home, he details to us the frightfulness of the home. He finds his friend Roderick sickly, and stays with him for a few days in order to cheer him up.