Survival & Struggles

In "The Yellow Wallpaper", I believe that the protagonist is struggling with depression, possibly postpartum depression, since she says "It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby" (P.369). She is also sort of battling with her husband and brother, who are both doctors and keep telling her she is fine, although she knows she is not. She even asks, "If a physician of high standing, and one's own huband, assures friends and realatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency - what is one to do?" (P.367). This shows that she is battling something a lot bigger than what everyone else thinks, or chooses to believe. I believe that she loses her battle, in the end, by committing suicide.

In "A Good Man is Hard to Find", it seems like the grandma is struggling with the changing times. She doesn't like that her grandkids don't act the same way that she used to when she was their age. We learn that their is an escaped convict, the Misfit, on the loose and heading towards Florida, which is where the family plans to go on vacation. She doesn't want to go that way at all, saying "...I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it..." (P.354). The family starts on their vacation, including grandma. When they are driving, she tells the kids a story about her past and convinces her son, their father, to go down a road so she can show them a plantation she used to go to. Once they are heading down the road, a horrible car accident occurs. Someone comes to help them, and grandma recognizes him right away as the Misfit, "You're the Misfit! I recognized you at once!" (P.360). Because of this, she has endangered her family in a way she had never hoped would happen. Now she is also battling with the criminals, pleading for them to just let the family go. She loses her battles in this story by death.