1. Can you see in "The Yellow Wallpaper" any similarities or parallels to the part of A Doll House that we've read?
2. It becomes more and more clear to the narrator that there is a person behind the "bars" of the wall paper. Comment.
3. Could this story be (among other things) about boredom?
4. The woman behind the wallpaper creeps, bother behind the wallpaper and outside the house (par. 198-199). Can you make anything of the fact that she "creeps"?
5. The narrator starts to remove the wallpaper (par. 210). She also reported, near the beginning of the story, that some of the wallpaper had been removed (par. 33). Comment.
6. Any theories as to what's going on with the rope (par. 239, 248)?
7. Any theories as to what happens at the end? (par. 264-267)?
8. Find a sentence you want to comment on and comment on it.
14 comments:
Hey everyone,
So I am going to try and answer question number 3. I think this story could very much be about boredom. I think it is about boredom because the narrator seems to be very interested by this wallpaper and rather than sleeping or doing something else she is killing time by staring at this wall and the wallpaper that covers it. The narrator seems very interested by the paper and for this reason she begins to stay up all night watching how the light changes what she sees, but at the same time I feel like she is also just trying to kill time because she cannot fall asleep. Plus in the daytime she likes to observe it also, not quite as much because the women isn't quite as visible, but she still is interested. Overall, I think it is a story of boredom and how the narrator finds something interesting to study and learn more about while she kills time. These are my thoughts and I hope I make sense. It is kind of hard for me to explain my point, but I do believe it is a story of boredom.
I am going to answer question #2. It seems like the person behind the “bars” of the wallpaper is none other than the narrator. Like the person behind the “bars,” the narrator is trapped and put under quarantine. I believe that somehow there is a connection between her the yellow wallpaper and herself. Towards the end of the story, the narrator takes interest in the yellow wallpaper and her conditions seems to be improving as well. She also observes the woman behind the bars very closely and comments that she “is always creeping and most women do not creep by daylight. I see her in that long shaded lane, creeping up and down. I see her in those dark grape arbors, creeping all around the garden.” (page 325). Although the narrator may be imaging this out of boredom, that woman does appeal to the narrator because both of them like to walk around freely. The narrator will not cease observing until she sees what the person is searching for. As her illness is improving, the less irritated she is with the wallpaper.
5. The narrator starts to remove the wallpaper (par. 210). She also reported, near the beginning of the story, that some of the wallpaper had been removed (par. 33). Comment
I think that because some of the wallpaper had already been removed, the narrator had o.c.d. and the crazed desire to rip the rest off the walls. She had to destroy it in order to complete its understanding/meaning. It's imperfection and hyptnotyzing (SP?) effects took control of her until she went mad enough. It's unclear to me what really happens in the end, or what she suffers from. Noting about the cod liver oil pills she takes, I know people take them for depression. Clearly, her mental state is much more intense than that though. I think she has to strip the taunting wallpaper so she can be free from it's gaze. or her gaze. She also might be hallucinating.
Hello,
So...Regarding question one, I think there are some clear similarities in the two stories. They both, to me, seem to be along the lines of mental mindset rather than events or physical matters. In the Yellow Wallpaper the women's health is put into question. Her mental health that is. It never says for sure if she is crazy in a way or struggling from the normal root of living but there she is certainly not all there. In the play the wife is almost insanely obsessed with money. Her arguments in which she attempts to get money are strange. She shows a lack of common sense when attempting to get her way. Either way I think unique minds are both present in the two stories.
I am answering number 3. I agree with Ashleigh that the story is about boredom in some ways. I feel that boredom alone does not cause the obsession the narrator has with the wallpaper and the figure she sees creeping in it and outside it.
I feel that when a person is extremely bored or in search of something to take their mind off of a potentially important matter they sometimes seek something out. I feel the narrator may have stared so long at t he wallpaper trying to find something in it to catch her attention that she began to believe what she was really seeing was there. It's almost as if the more bored she was with her surroundings the more she imagined the wallpaper into becoming or containing something else. So far that her boredom has almost driven her crazy (though she seemed a little crazy at the beginning).
Hey Guys, Mason here.
So I will attempt to attack #8 tonight. One sentence that really struck me while I was reading through this passage was "It is a very bad habit I am convinced, for you see I don't sleep". I am not sure as to why this particular sentence stuck out to me in relation to this particular story, but it related to me in the rhelm of life itself. When it said "I don't sleep" as a result of something, it makes me think of those times where I've been either very emotional or very scared or sick and I am not up to sleep that particular night."It is a very bad habit". When I know I had done something wrong that particular day, I lay in bed and I think. I think the character is thinking about the day and her habits. I hope this makes sense to everyone!
Mason
Hello,
Regarding question #7,
I'm not sure if I'm anywhere on track in terms of answering this question because the end of the story confused me a little, but I think the end of the story is really confirming that the narrator is in fact more crazy than we were let on to believe throughout the rest of the story. In one of my previous posts I commented on the fact that I think her "craziness" is not as bad as John makes it out to be but the end of the story sort of brought about the complete opposite. Well.. let me retract that statement briefly. I think metaphorically, the narrator finds herself within the wallpaper which makes a lot of sense because I think throughout the story the narrator feels very trapped. However, though this comparison is logical, I think the fact that in the end the narrator actually believes she was trapped within the wallpaper (so, more than just metaphorically), makes her seem a bit crazy in the head.
If you look at the ending as solely a metaphor for the narrator finding herself, I think it is a good conclusion to the entire story. The whole time the narrator seems to be trapped within the house but mostly, trapped within the room with the yellow wallpaper. Throughout the story she is searching for patterns and meaning within the wallpaper and when she finds the woman she seems to find herself. The woman in the wallpaper is walking along the lanes in the outside world which is one of the things the narrator mentions she would love to do, but John does not let her. In a way, the woman in the wallpaper represents a side of the narrator the narrator wishes she possessed; the freedom to roam in the real world. However, at the same time, the woman in the wallpaper is still trapped- just like the narrator. However as I previously stated, the merging of the narrator and this woman in the wallpaper, personally, I think is going a bit too far and pushing sanity a little too much. Though I think it makes perfect sense that the narrator "found herself" within the patterns, actually becoming the woman in the paper is another matter entirely.
Overall, I feel like the whole story is not really about the wallpaper at all, but about finding yourself and breaking free. The ending is exactly that; the narrator breaks free and finds something new within the patterns of the wallpaper. And yet at the same time, the narrator crosses the line from slightly "out-of-it" to becoming less sane.
Sorry if this is a big mess...
Thanks
Can you see in "The Yellow Wallpaper" any similarities or parallels to the part of A Doll House that we've read?
I think that there are many. THe most apparent would have to be the role of the husbands. That they are the ones who are controlling the situation, and telling their wives what they will do.
The story's are also similar in the way that we are more inside the minds of the leading women. We are seeing everything through their eyes. And feel with them.
Hi. I am answering question four!!
I think the woman creeping behind the wallpaper is
her trying to be subtle because she does not want to be heard or noticed. Creeping reminds me of a mouse sneaking into the kitched to steal food without being seen. She is trying to avoid getting attention.
In response to 2 and 6:
So- The narrator mentions that the wallpaper has stripes or bars at night and a shadowy figure lurking behind the bars of the wallpaper, which later she believes to be a woman or several women creeping. After inspecting it and getting so wildly imaginative about the women in the walls the narrator begins seeing them creeping everywhere and makes it her mission to get the woman in the actual paper out. As the image of the woman becomes more and more clear to the narrator we see her become less and less sane or at least practical about her visions. Obviously by the end of the story we find that the woman is her and her husband faints and she thinks its annoying. This seems to be a huge change in feeling toward him and a sign she's gone crazy. But she mentions finding a high place to stand in the room and trying to catch the woman with a rope when she escapes from the paper. I believe she caught herself by hanging herself. It seems that the quiet voice whispering to John was her ghost, and she might very well haunt the room forever since there isn't enough wallpaper left to put her back.
4. The woman behind the wallpaper creeps, bother behind the wallpaper and outside the house (par. 198-199). Can you make anything of the fact that she "creeps"?
To creep - to move slowly or carefully especially in order to avoid being heard or noticed
The "woman" creeps because she does not want to be heard or noticed by the others in the house. The woman behind the wallpaper is the insane side of the narrator. I believe that she may have schizophrenia and the woman that she thinks is behind the wallpaper is actually herself. Her mental disorder causes her to remove herself from her physical being and see herself from a different perspective. The creeping takes place because she wants to escape the world and its troubles by avoiding it in general. She doesn't want to be seen or heard by the others so she attempts to remove herself from their presence and creep through the night. It is this side of her that is slightly insane because she not actually two people. The whole thing is disturbing and she is quite insane.
I think that there are numerous similarities between Henry Ibsen's The Doll House and The Yellow Wallpaper. First and foremost is the childlike impression that both wives are receiving from their husbands. I think it is important to note that in The Doll House this seems to be much more of a 'facade' while in The Yellow Wallpaper it seems to be as if the narrator is unable to escape this impression. In both cases however I think that this impression very much represses who the women naturally are and dictates how they can act/react to what is occuring around them.
Hello all! I will be responding to #5.
I definitely see the mental instability that Sarah discussed and would like to add to her ideas. I feel that there is a sense of accomplishment that is felt when something is completed, especially after being incomplete for a while. I feel that this is a potential motivation behind her actions, because things are not "right" or "settled" until she completes the job that either nature or someone else started. Perhaps she feels it is her duty or a job to either herself, the room, or the "woman behind the wallpaper." She cannot feel safe or secure until she has the reassurance of completing the job herself. I feel that there is an lack of trust and an element of suspicion especially regarding the woman behind the wallpaper, and removing the wallpaper has a psychological effect on her that makes her feel more safe and at ease.
Maybe I am off the mark, but that is the sense I got from it. Thanks! :)
Pall
#7
First off, the ending to this story really creeps the hell out of me, which is partly why i like it so much.
So as to what I'm thinking happens at the end. The narrator is in this house because she has a nervous depression problem. This lets us know right off the bat that she's not really mentally stable. She also says in the first few pages that she thinks the house is very queer, and that "No wonder the children hated it! (the wallpaper) I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long." Now I'd like to bring some attention to the way her feelings toward the wallpaper change throughout the story. At first, she just doesn't like it. Next she begins to hate it, and asks John to take it down. After that we see her begin to be obsessive about analyzing it and figuring out that pattern. Then we read about how the wallpaper changes from night time to day time, and how the narrator stays up all night just to watch that change happen when the first straight ray of sun comes through the window. This, i think, is very important to what happens at the end. She is obviously becoming less and less mentally stable, and part of that is that she won't let anybody who's taking care of her know. She is crazy enough that she begins to think that there is a woman behind the fore design of the wall paper. For the first few days of this, she just watches the woman try to get out. Then all of a sudden, she just has to set her free. She begins tearing down all the wallpaper that she can, but has to stop at day time. But she is still not as crazy as she will be. Part of the creepiness of the end is that we realize that she has been in a much worse condition during the whole story than we thought. She describes several women, instead of just one, creeping around outside, yet at the same time being trapped behind the wallpaper. I think that at this point we can see that she is really talking about her self, though it doesn't become obvious until the end when she herself begins to creep around the room with her shoulder on the smooch. So my all inclusive theory about what happens in the end is: "The narrator simply succeeds in releasing her inner crazy qualities that she has been having to keep behind 'the wallpaper' since the time that she became sick. But because she is way more sick now than when she started, she has forgotten that what she's doing is supposed to be really really bad, and so is actually proud of her accomplishment.
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