MC The Yellow Wallpaper Essay

User Generated

Vinaxn103

Humanities

montgomery college

Description

Essay Assignment Instructions

Write a literary analysis of the story of your choice. In this 3–4-page essay, you will analyze some aspect of a story we’ve already read using details from the text to support your assertion (thesis).Your job will be to share a thoughtful, deep understanding of the story as you interpret it. You will not be doing any outside research for this essay and you are expected to consider only the story itself, not any additional resource information.

Your thesis for this essay must be argumentative, meaning your goal is to convince your reader that your assertion about the story is accurate. You will do this by providing evidence from the text (quotations and paraphrases) to support each point you make. In choosing a thesis, keep in mind the “So what?” factor. You should not choose a thesis that will make readers respond, “Yes, that’s true, but so what?” Instead, you need to provide a thoughtful analysis of the story that extends the reader’s understanding of it.

Please note that this essay is not an extended summary; however, at times you may summarize the text to clarify or prove the assertions you make in your analysis of the text

Unformatted Attachment Preview

Outline Critical Essay, “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” Thesis Statement: Dave is obsessed with owing a gun because it represents the lack of power that Dave's father had in a male-dominated family, and white male-dominated society. TOPIC SENTENCE Paragraph One: There is a discrepancy between the masculine manners of his father at the dinner table, after the shooting of Jenny the mule, and the authoritative power of the mother who he must go to for the money that he needs to purchase the gun. Supporting quotes from the text: • “Boy, how com yuh don quit foolin wid tha book n eat yo suppah?” “Yessuh.” “How you n ol man Hawkings gitten erlong?” “Suh?” “Can't yuh hear? Why don yuh lissen? Ah ast yu how wuz yuh n ol man Hawkins gittin erlong?” “Oh, swell Pa. Ah plow mo lan than anybody over there.” “Waal, yuh oughta keep you mind on whuy yuh doin.” “Yessuh” (1369). • It is only when he says, “But Ma, we needs gun. Pa ain got no gun. We needs gun in the house. Yuh kin never tell whut might happen” (1370), that she agrees to give him the money to buy it, and bring it back to his father. “She stooped, turned slightly to one side, raised the hem of her dress, rolled down the top of her stocking, and came up with a slender wad of bills. “Here,” she said. “Lawd knows yuh don need no gun. But yer pa does” (1370). • “Shucks. A man oughta have a little gun aftah he done worked hard all day” (1367). TOPIC SENTENCE Paragraph Two: There is a discrepancy between the physical power that his father exhibits through the threat of beatings, and his father's lack of the economic power held by the white man. It is the white man who is the landowner, owns the store, pays the wages, and determines the value of guns, mules, and labor. Supporting quotes from the text: • “That night Dave did not sleep…He tossed on his bed, feeling his hard pillow. N Pa says ge’s gonna beat me…He remembered other beatings, and his back quivered. Naw, naw, Ah sho don wan im t beat me tha way no mo” (1375). • “Say, if you wanna buy a gun, why don’t you buy one from me? I gotta gun to sell” (1368). “What yuh wan fer it?” (1368). “I’ll let you have it for two dollars” (1368). • “Well, you needn’t worry about it, Bob,” said Jim Hawkins to Dave’s father. “Just let the boy keep on working and pay me two dollars a month” (1374). TOPIC SENTENCE Paragraph Three: The father represents the subservient black man to the white power. Dave senses that he will remain powerless as he passes the home of Mr. Hawkins, and that is the reason that he leaves home. Supporting quotes from the text: • Jim Hawkins refers to Dave’s father by his first name, and Dave’s father refers to Jim Hawkins as “Mistah Hawkins” (1375) • “Lawd, ef Ah just one mo bullet Ah’d taka shot at tha house. Ah’d like t scare ol man Hawkins jusa little…Jusa enough t let im know Dave Saunders is a man” (1375). Conclusion: Dave wants a gun; the gun represents both the power that his father does not have, and his father's way of life which prevents his son from fully being a man. Therefore, by keeping the gun and boarding the train, Dave sees the possibility of becoming a new black man: “Ahead the long rails were glinting in the moonlight, stretching away, away to somewhere, somewhere he could be a man…” (1376). With this impulsive act, Dave becomes part of a historic migration of African Americans seeking new beginnings and economic opportunities in the booming industries of northern cities. "I am sitting by the Window in th is Atrocious Nursery." THE YELLO\N \\TALL-PAPER. By Cltarlotte Perkins Stetson. T is very seldom that mere ordi­ nary P""ople like John and myself secure ancestral hall s for the summer. A colonial man­ sion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity- but that would be asking too much of fate! Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it. Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted? John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures. John is a physician, and perltaps - (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind - ) per/zaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick! . And what can one do? THE YELLOW WALL-PARER. If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency - what is one to do? My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing. • So I take phosphates or phosphites­ whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do? I did write for a while 111 spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal-having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition. I sometimes fancy that in my condi­ tion if I had less opposition and more . society and stimulus - but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. So I will let it alone and talk about the house. The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people. There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden -large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them. There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now. There was some legal trouble, I be­ lieve, something about the heirs and co­ heirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years. That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don't care - there is something strange about the house - I can feel it. I even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was a drauglzt, and shut the window. I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I'm sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition. But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself-before him, at least, and that makes me very tired. I don't like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hang­ ings! but John would not hear of it. He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another. He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direc­ tion. I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it ·more. He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. "Your ex­ erc ise depends on your strength, my dear," said he," and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can ab­ sorb all the time." So we took the nur­ sery at the top of the house. It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the win­ dows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls. The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it. It is stripped off­ the paper - 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. I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to con­ stantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide - plunge off at outrage­ ous angles, destroy themselves in un­ heard of contradictions. THE YELLOW The color is repellant, almost revolt­ ing ; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sun­ light. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others. No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long. There comes John, and I must put this away, - he hates to have me write a word. • • • • * • We have been here two·weeks, and I haven't felt like writing before, since that first day. I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is noth­ ing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength. John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. I am glad my case is not serious! But these nervous troubles are dread­ fully depressing. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him. Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh o"n me so not to do my duty in any way! I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already! Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able, - to dress and entertain, and order things. It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous. I suppose John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about this wall-paper! At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies. He said that after the wall-paper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on. "You know the place is doing you ·WAL~PAPER. 649 good," he said, "and really, dear, I don't care to renovate the house just for a three months' rental." "Then do let us go downstairs," I said, "there are such pretty rooms there." Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain. But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things. It is an airy and comfortable room as anyone need wish, and, of course, I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfort­ able just for a whim. I'm really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper. Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deep-shaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees. Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf be­ longing to the estate. There is a beauti­ ful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, a nervous weak­ ness like mine is sure to lead to all man­ ner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try. I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write_ a little it would re­ lieve the press of ideas and rest me. But I find I get pretty tired when I try. It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well, John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now. I wish I could get well faster. But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had! There is a recurrent spot where the. pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down. I get positively angry with the imperti­ j 650 THE YELLOW WALL-PAPER. nence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are every­ where. There is one place where two breaths didn't match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other. I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most chil­ dren could find in a toy-store. I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big, old bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend. I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe. The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however, for we had to bring it all from downstairs. I sup­ pose when this was used as a playroom they had to take the nursery things out, and no wonder! I never saw such raV .lges as the children have made here. The wall-paper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it sticketh closer than a brother - they must have had persever­ ance as well as hatred. Then the floor is scratched and gou~ed and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars. H But I don't mind it a bit only the paper. There comes John's sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful of me ! I must not let her find me writing. She is a perfect and enthusiastic house­ keeper, and hopes for no better profes­ sion. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick! But I can write when she is out, and see her a long way off from these windows. There is one that commands the road, a lovely shaded winding road, and one that just looks off over the country. A lovely country, too, full of great elms and velvet meadows. This wallpaper has a kind of su b­ pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see It In certain lights, and not clearly then. But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so - I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design. There's sister on the stairs! * * * * * * Well, the Fourth of July is over! The people are all gone and I am tired out. John thought it might do me good to see a little company, so we just had mother and Nellie and the children down for a week. Of course I didn't do a thing. Jennie sees to everything now. But it tired me all the same. John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall. But I don't want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so ! Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far. I don't feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over for anything, and I'm getting dreadfully fretful and querulous. I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time. Of course I don't when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone. And I am alone a good deal just now. John is kept in town very often by serious cases, and Jennie is good and lets me alone when I want her to. So I walk a little in the garden or down that lovely lane, sit on the porch under the roses, and lie down up here a good deal. I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper. It dwells in my mind so ! I lie here on this great immovable bed - it is nailed down, I believe - and fol­ low that pattern about by the hour. It it as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we'll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has nos been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a con­ clusion. THE YELLOW WALL-PAPER. 651 I know a little of the principle of absurd. But I must say what I feel design, and I know this thing was not and think in some way - it is such aarranged on any laws of radiation, or relief ! alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or But the effort is getting to be greater anything else that I ever heard of. than the relief. It is repeated, of course, by the Half the time now I am awfully lazy,. breadths, but not otherwise. and lie down ever so much. John says I mustn't lose my strength,. Looked at in one way each breadth stands alone, the bloated curves and and has me take cod liver oil and lots of flourishes - a kind of " debased Romanesque" with delirium tremens - go waddling up and down in isolated columns of fatuity. But, on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase. The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that "direction. They have used a horizontal breadth for a frieze, and that adds wonderfully to the confusion. There is one end of the room where Sh e didn't know I was in the Room. it is almost intact, and there, when the crosslights fade and the low sun shines tonics and things, to say nothing of aledirectly upon it, I can almost fancy radia- and wine and rare meat. Dear John! He loves me very dearlYr tion after all, - the interminable grotesque seem to form around a common and hates to have me sick. I tried to centre and rush off in headlong plunges have a real earnest reasonable talk with. him the other day, and tell him how I of equal distraction. It makes me tired to follow it. I will wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia. take a nap I guess. But he said I wasn't able to go, nor" * * * * * * able to stand it after I got there j and I I don't know why I should write this. did not make out a very good case for I don't want to. myself, for I was crying before I had finI don't feel able. And I know John would think it ished. o II Il THE YELLOW WALL-PAPER. ·652 It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weak­ ness I suppose. And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head. He said I was his darling and his COl).1­ fort and all he had, and that I must take .care of myself for his sake, and keep well. He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me. There's one comfort, the baby is well .and happy, and does not have to occupy this nursery with the horrid wallpaper. If we had not used it, that blessed child would have! What a fortunate es­ cape! Why, I wouldn't have a child of mine, an impressionable little thing, live in such a room for worlds. I never thought of it before, but it is lucky that John kept me here after all, I .can stand it so much easier than a baby, you see. Of course I never mention it to them .any more - I am too wise, - but I keep watch of it all the same. There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very num::!rous. And it is like a woman stooping down .and creeping about behind that pattern. I don't like it a bit. I wonder - I be­ -gin to think - I wish John would take ,me away from here! * * * * * * It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and be­ .cause he loves me so. But I tried it last night. It was moonlight. The moon shines in all around just as the sun does. I hate to see it sometimes, it creeps so slowly, and always comes in by one win­ ,dow or another. John was asleep and I hated to waken nim, so I kept still and watched the moonlight on that undulating wallpaper till I felt creepy. The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out. I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move, and when I came back John was awake. "What is it, little girl?" he said. "Don't go walking about like that­ you'll get cold." I thought it was a good time to talk, so I told him that I really was not gain­ ing here, and that I wished he would take me away. "Why, darling!" said he, "our lease will be up in three weeks, and I can't see how to leave before. " The repairs are not done at home, and I cannot possibly leave town just now. Of course if you were in any danger, I could and would, but you really are bet­ ·ter, dear, whether you can 6ee it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better, I feel really much easier about you." "I don't weigh a bit more," said I, "nor as much; and my appetite may be better in the evening when you are here, but it is worse in the morning when you are awav!" " Ble~s her little heart!" s:1id he with a big hug, "she sha ll be as sick as she pleases! But now let's improve the shin­ ing hours by going to sleep, and talk about it in the morning! " "And you won't go away?" I asked gloomily. "Why, how can I, dear? It is only three weeks more and then we will take a nice little trip of a few days while Jennie is getting the house ready. Really dear you are better! " " Better in body perhaps - " I began, and stopped short, for he sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern, re­ proachful look that I could not say another word. "My darling," said he, " I beg of you, for my sake and for our child's sake, as well as for your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so? " THE YELLOW WALL-PAPER. 653­ Indeed he started the habit by making­ me lie down for an hour after each meal. It is a very bad habit I am convinced,. for you see I don't sleep. And that cultivates deceit, for I don't tell them I'm awake - 0 no ! The fact is I am getting a little afraid * * * * * * of John. He seems very queer sometimes, and On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of even Jennie has an inexplicable look. It strikes me occasionally, just as a law, that is a ' constant irritant to a nor­ scientific hypothesis,- that perhaps it is· mal mind. The color is hideous enough, and un­ the paper! I have watched John when he did not reliable enough, and infuriating enough, know I was looking, and come into the but the pattern is torturing. You think you have mastered it, but room suddenly on the most innocent ex­ just as you get well underway in following, cuses, and I've caught him several times. it turns a back-somersault and there you looking at the paper! And Jennie too. I are. It slaps you in the face, knocks caught Jennie with her hand on it once_ She didn't know I was in the room,. you down, and tramples upon you. It is and when I asked her in a quiet, a very like a bad dream. The outside pattern is a florid ara­ quiet voice, with the most restrained man­ besque, reminding one of a fungus. If ner possible, what she was doing with the you can imagine a toadstool in joints, an paper - she turned around as if she had interminable string of toadstools, budding been caught stealing, and looked quite and sprouting in endless convolutions­ angry - asked me why I should frighten . her so ! why, that is something like it. Then she said that the paper stained That is, sometimes! There is one marked peculiarity about everything it touched, that she had found this paper, a thing nobody seems to yellow smooches on all my clothes and notice but myself, and that is that it John's, and she wished we would be more' careful! changes as the light changes. When the sun shoots in through the Did not that sound innocent? But I east window - I always watch for that know she was studying that pattern, and first long, straight ray - it changes so I am determined that nobody shall find quickly that I never can quite believe it. it out but myself! That is why I watch it always. * * * * * * By moonligh[ - the moon shines in all Life is very much more excltmg now night when there is a moon - I wouldn't than it used to be. You see I have some­ thing more to expect, to look forward to,. know it was the same paper. At night in any kind of light, in twi­ to watch . I really do eat better, and am light, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of more quiet than I was. all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The John is so pleased to see me improve! outside pattern I mean, and the woman He laughed a little the other day, and behind it is as plain as can be. said I seemed to be flourishing in spite I didn't realize for a long time what of my wall-paper. the thing was that showed behind, that I turned it off with a laugh. I had no dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure intention of telling him it was because of the wall-paper - he would make fun of it is a woman. By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I me. He might even want to take me away. fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so I don't want to leave now until I have still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me found it out. There is a week more, and quiet by the hour. I think that will be enough. I lie down ever so much now. John says * * * * * * it is good for me, and to sleep all I can. I'm feeling ever so much better! I So of course I said no more on that score, and we went to sleep before long. He thought I was asleep first, but I wasn't, and lay there for hours trying to .decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately. THE YELLOW WALL-PAPER. 654
Purchase answer to see full attachment
Explanation & Answer:
4 pages
User generated content is uploaded by users for the purposes of learning and should be used following Studypool's honor code & terms of service.

Explanation & Answer

Please view explanation and answer below.Attached is the outline. Uploading the final analysis shortly

Name
Professor
Course
Date
Literary Analysis of the yellow wallpaper
Introduction to the text
✓ Literary analysis of the text from a feminist perspective
✓ Challenges facing women in the contemporary society
✓ Critical analysis and engagement with the text
Conclusion

Please view explanation and answer below.

Surname1
Name
Instructor
Course
Date
Literary Analysis: The Yellow Wallpaper
The 19th century was a challenging time for women in the United States and other parts
of the globe. During this period, women were considerably oppressed by society which was
highly dominated by men. In addition to being subjected to violence, abuse and mistreatment,
the women also suffered from emotional and psychological abuse due to confinement and social
norms that hindered them from pursuing their goals. This observation is made clear in The
Yellow Wallpaper, which was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman to show the extensive
oppression and entrapment of women in marriage. Particularly, Gilman’s use of the house is
symbolic of the institution of marriage and the various ways that it traps women in an unending
cycle where those who attempt to escape are labeled insane.
The yellow wallpaper is a fictional...


Anonymous
Excellent! Definitely coming back for more study materials.

Studypool
4.7
Trustpilot
4.5
Sitejabber
4.4

Related Tags