Life is Nothing but a Hazy Shade of Gray Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” is a short story about two girls, Twyla and Roberta, their relationship and various run ins throughout the course of their lives. Recitatif’s main underlying theme deals with racism. The theme is obviously present, Morrison makes it known that the two girls are of different races, but he intentionally does not define them by their color. This decision forces the reader to come up their own assumptions and ultimately strengthens the message of racism and the understanding of the point that Morrison is trying to make. Toni Morrison gives clues that leads the reader to formulate their own guesses about the girls’ ethnicities by saying that they are “like salt and pepper” (Morrison 140).
Women’s reality, such as Gilman’s, in this time period was being a submissive wife with few rights in society. This fictional story, appears to be more reality than fiction. The Yellow Wallpaper is a feminist text used as a cry for help of all the oppressed women from nineteenth century. Women’s repression was a problem that impacted the lives of those who lived in this time period. This story expresses a concern of the role women, particularly within the aspect of marriage, maternity, and domesticity.
As she lies in bed she looks back on her past. Since “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” is written in stream-of-consciousness narration, the reader is able to see what Granny sees when she looks back on the memories that give her pride, and those that cause her pain. The type of narration of the short story “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” provides the reader with an interesting point of view. Because it is written in stream-of-consciousness the story is missing some key plot elements. “Instead of the usual short story elements of plot such as exposition, rising action, climax, and denouncement, Porter skillfully uses stream-of-consciousness not merely to delineate the character of Granny Weatherall but to tell her life’s story as well” (Britton).
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was active in several feminist and reformist organizations in the late eighteen hundreds: “she proposed revolutionary rearrangements of domestic life to free women for work outside the home.” (p.204), she was truly a brave woman of her age. Gilman reflects her own mental illness and domestic imprisonment through the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. At the beginning of the story, the wife and husband’s relationship seems normal and appealing, but then you learn about the woman’s sickness. This implies that their relationship and husbands support may not be as wonderful as it first seems, because having a good social support from family and friends increasingly helps reduce the seriousness of postpartum depression. Although ten to fifteen percent of women can suffer from postpartum depression the eighteen nineties was an age in which men would normally see women as hysterical and nervous; therefore when a woman claimed to be very ill after having a child, men would simply tell them to sleep it off and dismiss them for “there is really nothing the matter” (p.205).
“The Yellow Wallpaper” “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a story that explores the advancing depression and psychosis of a woman during a time in which women had few rights and were given little respect. The overall theme of this piece is to explore the gender roles of women during the nineteenth century. The Victorian era was one of extreme restrictions on the economic status as well as the individuality and sexuality of women. Perhaps the most important aspect of this story is the author’s use of symbolism to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions about the dynamic of the main character’s relationship with her husband, as well as her mental state. One aspect of the story that is striking relates to the fact that the entire piece is
Today’s society Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut. After suffering from depression throughout most of her life, she went to seek advice, and was told to stop doing anything, that she normally did, because it would make her conditions worse. She therefore wrote The Yellow Wallpaper to express herself, and express the suffering she went through. Even though the society of the time period she was from criticized it, she argued that she wasn’t intending to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy by reading The Yellow Wallpaper. Gilman was so far ahead from her time period, so she was criticized for writing about the topic of depression and mental illness, which for that time period was very frowned upon and unspoken.
Literary Criticism Outline I. “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkin Gilman was inspired by her own personal experience of dealing with mental illness. She had her own encounter of a mental breakdown before writing the short story. Examining foreshadowing, imagery, and personification in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” reveals the intense tone about mental illness and the need for proper treatment at the right time. II.
English II Zoila Flores Response Paper II In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator may seem to have lost her mind with the actions she takes in the story. As the story goes on, is the narrator really gone mad? John has cut her off from the real world and controls everything that she is able to do. If anyone else was in this situation, they may have acted and done the same as she did. I believe that the narrator had no choice to do with what she was told and over time she began to she began to change, but still aware of what is going on.
An unreliable narrator is one whose narration is not credible and their audience may not always believe what the narrator is telling them. The point of view Charlotte Gilman’s first person narrative, The Yellow Wallpaper, allows the audience to see the struggle of sanity versus insanity within the narrator. Gilman leaves the reader questioning the narrator’s reliability, due to the narrators declining mental stability. The narrator’s skewed perception of her mental health unfortunately means the serene environment will not provide the rest needed to recover from her depression. Such isolated atmosphere and forced solitary confinement eventually envelops the narrator in her insanity.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” using the unreliable narrator which makes the story more engaging. Gilman’s famous short story had a lot to do with her own personal life and how she suffered from postpartum depression. The setting and theme of Gilman’s story were unbelievable and makes the short story more exhilarating. The narrator in the short story was unreliable. Gilman told the story from her own point of view; the reader cannot trust what to believe.