In "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Gilman, the narrator encounters conflicts with herself, her husband, and with nature.
The human vs. human conflict was between her and her husband. I believe part of her knows that he loves her and only wants the best for her as stated in paragraph 29, "He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction." As the story progresses, and her mind regresses, she becomes suspicious of his motives. Paragraph 160 says, "The fact is I am getting quite afraid of John. He seems very queer sometimes." She tries to tell him what is going on, and even mentions in paragraph 141 "Better in body perhaps", but he doesn't want her to dwell on it in fear of her condition worsening.
The narrator also struggles with nature, mainly the sunshine and moonlight. Throughout the story, the narrator sees people walking in the deep-shaded arbors, the moonlight creeping in and either shaking the wallpaper or turning it into bars, while the "first long, straight rays" change it back. She becomes obsessed with the changes made in the moonlight, and begins to sleep during the day and not at night. Paragraph 212 "She said I slept a good deal in the daytime. John knows I don't sleep very well at night, for all I'm so quiet."
The final and most compelling conflict is human vs. self. Throughout the story, she faces battle after battle with her mind. She knows that her mind is faltering, but can't seem to differentiate between what is real, and what is a hallucination. She has tricked herself into believing that the children who lived there before her had "scratched, gouged, and splintered" (parag. 74) the floor, dug holes in the plaster, and stripped the wallpaper off in "great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down." (Parag. 33) She also belives that the bars on the windows and the rings in the wall was because "It was a nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge." (Parag. 32) She admits in paragraph 90 that she ""cries at nothing, and cries most of the time." I think she knows in some part of her brain that what she is seeing isn't real, but as time goes on, she is less and less sure of this.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
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.
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.
"A Rose for Emily" and "The Yellow Wallpaper"
In "A Rose for Emily", Emily is not crazy in the traditional sense of the word. Part of the reason Emily lives a secluded life is because her father turned away all of her potential husbands before he died. After her father's death she has no one to take care of her so she clung to the security of the past by resisting the changes of the younger generation. When Emily's love for Homer Baron is not returned, she does the only thing she can to keep him from leaving; she kills him and then tenderly loves him for the next forty years until she dies. The combination of being a Grierson who thinks she is better than everyone and her inability to let go of the past help to portray Emily as a crazy person when in reality she is desperately lonely and to stubborn to accept the new ways of the post Civil War society.
The narrator from "The Yellow Wallpaper" suffers a mental breakdown after she has been isolated in her room with her hallucinations for most of the summer. Her lack of stimulation and her active imagination propel her deeper into the madness of her own world until she finally breaks down and creeps along the mop-board of her room.
The narrator from "The Yellow Wallpaper" suffers a mental breakdown after she has been isolated in her room with her hallucinations for most of the summer. Her lack of stimulation and her active imagination propel her deeper into the madness of her own world until she finally breaks down and creeps along the mop-board of her room.
"The Story of an Hour" conflicts
After reading " The story of an Hour" I see the different Conflicts Mrs. Mallard has. The first is Human vs. Human, Mrs. Mallard had to have some sort of conflicting feelings toward her husband. Yes she does weep at the sound of her husbands death but she also feels the freedom to come in the future. The conflict of Human vs Nature is when she retreats back to her room and and sits by the window feeling sad she is overcome by the peace of nature of the air. She sees patches of blue sky and hears the twittering of birds. With the peacefullnes of the outside it causes Mrs. Mallard to get over her mourning and see the future of freedom. Finally with the conflict of Human vs. Self I feel that after the mourning of her husband she did feel guilty of her sudden sense of freedom but was able to leave the room and carry herself unwittingly like a goddess of victory (paragraph 20) because she knew that she would weep again of his death.
The Examination of the Protagonists in "A Rose for Emily" and "The Yellow Wallpaper"
“A Rose for Emily,” written by William Faulkner, and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, show, through their female protagonists, how isolation from society can mentally and emotionally cripple a person. In both stories, the female protagonists are secluded from society, leading them to act drastically in order to fulfill their needs for personal communication with others.
In “A Rose for Emily,” Emily finds herself alone for most of her life. Her father is her only emotional connection, because he does not allow her to run freely among the other townspeople. When Emily’s father dies, she loses the only person she has a personal bond with and she can’t handle the complete isolation she now faces. Desperate to ease her pain and unable to deal with the grief of losing her father, Emily convinces herself that he is not dead, telling townspeople “…her father was not dead” (p.208). Emily does not do this because she is crazy, but because she knows that without him, she will be completely alone. Emily does what she feels she must do in order maintain a level of sanity. When Emily meets Homer Barron, she regains the personal connection that she lost when her father died. Now, finding happiness in her connection with him, she realizes how important it is to keep that connection, in order to keep her sanity. Emily knows, from her prior experience in losing her father, that if Homer leaves her, she will become completely isolated again. Emily plans Homer‘s murder in an organized fashion, ordering “…a man’s toilet set in silver, with the letters H.B. on each piece” (p.210) and two days later, buying “…a complete outfit of men’s clothing, including a nightshirt…” (p.210). She then kills Homer, because she is not willing to risk losing him, which would lead to her own collapse from loneliness. Emily thoroughly plans the murder of Homer; something a crazy woman would be incapable of doing.
The nameless woman who faces isolation in “The Yellow Wallpaper” desperately searches for some means of interaction within the confinement of her bedroom lined with yellow wallpaper. At first, she dislikes the ugly wallpaper, saying that she is “…quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid wallpaper” (p.369). John, her husband, “…is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious” (p.368). Left alone in her room, the woman spends most of her time sleeping. Soon, she becomes lonely and begins to see the wallpaper in a different light. Desperate, she turns to her imagination to quench her thirst for personal interaction. The wallpaper is now her obsession. She “…follow[s] the pattern about by the hour” (p.370) and lays “…for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately” (p.373). She lives through the putrid paper that lines her walls, because it keeps her from feeling completely alone. The woman begins to see “…a great many women behind [the] [wallpaper], and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast…” (p.375). These women of her imagination give the lonely woman a sense of companionship, for with them she is not alone in the big bedroom. The woman uses the wallpaper, and her imagination, as an escape from the isolation that she deals with. She uses what she has in order to keep herself from feeling the darkness of isolation, her creative mind and the yellow wallpaper.
Both Emily and the nameless woman show that, when faced with isolation, a person will go to great measures to fulfill their emotion needs for interaction with others. Living in isolation, these women know that they will not last long. Therefore, they do what they feel is necessary in order to keep the thought of complete isolation at bay from their minds.
In “A Rose for Emily,” Emily finds herself alone for most of her life. Her father is her only emotional connection, because he does not allow her to run freely among the other townspeople. When Emily’s father dies, she loses the only person she has a personal bond with and she can’t handle the complete isolation she now faces. Desperate to ease her pain and unable to deal with the grief of losing her father, Emily convinces herself that he is not dead, telling townspeople “…her father was not dead” (p.208). Emily does not do this because she is crazy, but because she knows that without him, she will be completely alone. Emily does what she feels she must do in order maintain a level of sanity. When Emily meets Homer Barron, she regains the personal connection that she lost when her father died. Now, finding happiness in her connection with him, she realizes how important it is to keep that connection, in order to keep her sanity. Emily knows, from her prior experience in losing her father, that if Homer leaves her, she will become completely isolated again. Emily plans Homer‘s murder in an organized fashion, ordering “…a man’s toilet set in silver, with the letters H.B. on each piece” (p.210) and two days later, buying “…a complete outfit of men’s clothing, including a nightshirt…” (p.210). She then kills Homer, because she is not willing to risk losing him, which would lead to her own collapse from loneliness. Emily thoroughly plans the murder of Homer; something a crazy woman would be incapable of doing.
The nameless woman who faces isolation in “The Yellow Wallpaper” desperately searches for some means of interaction within the confinement of her bedroom lined with yellow wallpaper. At first, she dislikes the ugly wallpaper, saying that she is “…quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid wallpaper” (p.369). John, her husband, “…is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious” (p.368). Left alone in her room, the woman spends most of her time sleeping. Soon, she becomes lonely and begins to see the wallpaper in a different light. Desperate, she turns to her imagination to quench her thirst for personal interaction. The wallpaper is now her obsession. She “…follow[s] the pattern about by the hour” (p.370) and lays “…for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately” (p.373). She lives through the putrid paper that lines her walls, because it keeps her from feeling completely alone. The woman begins to see “…a great many women behind [the] [wallpaper], and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast…” (p.375). These women of her imagination give the lonely woman a sense of companionship, for with them she is not alone in the big bedroom. The woman uses the wallpaper, and her imagination, as an escape from the isolation that she deals with. She uses what she has in order to keep herself from feeling the darkness of isolation, her creative mind and the yellow wallpaper.
Both Emily and the nameless woman show that, when faced with isolation, a person will go to great measures to fulfill their emotion needs for interaction with others. Living in isolation, these women know that they will not last long. Therefore, they do what they feel is necessary in order to keep the thought of complete isolation at bay from their minds.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Conflict in A Rose For Emily
In this story Miss Emily had conflict with not one but many people. (Human vs. Human) The biggest conflict that we see is that with her father. We don't know much about him, but we do know that he chased away any possible romantic interest for his daughter, and possibly other relationships with friends as well. This is probably the most significant conflict in the story as it lays the groundwork for the rest of the story. It explains why Emily is the way she is. She doesn't take kindly to others the try to approach her and when she actually did go somewhere, she thought of herself somewhat as royalty.
Her lover leaves her, and other people are scared of her to some extent. It's as though they watch her from afar. They want to know what's going on with her and what's in her house and where her lover went, but no one can get close enough to her to find out. She shuts everyone out, just as her father did.
Her lover leaves her, and other people are scared of her to some extent. It's as though they watch her from afar. They want to know what's going on with her and what's in her house and where her lover went, but no one can get close enough to her to find out. She shuts everyone out, just as her father did.
A&P
In the story A&P there are many different kinds of conflicts represented. The first kind of conflict is human vs. human. This conflict is represented when Sammy disagrees with his boss Lengal ‘s opinion about the way the three girls are dressed that walk into the store. The second kind of conflict is human vs. nature. I believe this is represented by the way the three girls are dressed in only their bathing suits and the conflict that makes arise when Lengal sees them. Lengal believes the girls are dressed inappropriately, but naturally the girls believe they are not doing anything wrong. The third and last type of conflict displayed is human vs. self. This type of conflict is shown when Sammy decides that is willing to quit working at the store because of his beliefs. Sammy shows how one can argue with themselves whether or not they make the right decision.
Human vs. Self
I think that TheYellow Wallpaper is a great example of Human vs. Self. The narrator wants to be healty but cannot fight her inner demons. She talks about the good things in her life, like her husband (who really seems to love her) and her new baby. She talks about family members that she would love to have visit, and the lovely home that they are staying in.
The problem is that she is her own worst enemy. She knows that she is not well, she talks about how as a child she could entertain herself by watching shadows on the wall. She talks about how there are things in the wallpaper in their room that only she can understand. She sees broken necks and bogged eyes in the wall paper. She seems to want to be able to get well, but it seems between her husband and brother (both doctors) she does not get access to the help she needs, as they keep telling her that that there is nothing wrong with her and only she can fix herself.
Someone facing their inner-demons is that saddest thing. Especially when that person knows that they are not well but can't figure out how to fix it. I don't know that her issues were ever resolved. At the end of the story, I believe that she kills herself, it doesn't say so specifically, but there are clues like her talking about having a rope, she talks about wanting to jump out the window and her saying "I got out at last, inspite of you and Jane".
The problem is that she is her own worst enemy. She knows that she is not well, she talks about how as a child she could entertain herself by watching shadows on the wall. She talks about how there are things in the wallpaper in their room that only she can understand. She sees broken necks and bogged eyes in the wall paper. She seems to want to be able to get well, but it seems between her husband and brother (both doctors) she does not get access to the help she needs, as they keep telling her that that there is nothing wrong with her and only she can fix herself.
Someone facing their inner-demons is that saddest thing. Especially when that person knows that they are not well but can't figure out how to fix it. I don't know that her issues were ever resolved. At the end of the story, I believe that she kills herself, it doesn't say so specifically, but there are clues like her talking about having a rope, she talks about wanting to jump out the window and her saying "I got out at last, inspite of you and Jane".
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