The Yellow Wallpaper 321-to the end

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.

The Yellow Wallpaper pp. 316-321, par. 1-104

1. To what extent is the narrator psychologically unwell? Or can we not tell? What evidence can you cite?

2. Does the narrator's husband, John, seem like a good man or not? Or can we not tell? Wave evidence can you cite?

3. How is this story (so far) different from the other stories we've read so far? What evidence can you cite?

4. What, if anything, is wrong with the narrator's treatment from your own point of view? Explain.

5. Is there anything the narrator should be doing, realistically speaking, that she is not doing now? Why?

6. What do you notice about the room in which the narrator stays and writes? What do you think about whatever it is you notice?

7. Find a sentence worthy of comment, and comment on it.

7.

The Lady with the Dog pp. 185 to the end

1. In paragraph 47, starting "At Orenada they sat on a seat not far from the church," assume it is Dmitri Dmitritch (Gurov) who is thinking thoughts about the sea's sound and eternal salvation and progress. How does this paragraph contribute to how our sense of who he is?

2. How do paragraphs 59-61 ("The train moved off rapidly. . . . 'High time!'") contribute to our sense of who he is, or reinforce our sense of who he is?

3. Why do you suppose that to his own surprise Dmitri continues to remember his time with Anna Sergeyevna vividly (par. 64)?

4. In paragraphs 66-71, Dmitri has a conversation with a companion, involving sturgeon (a kind of fish, evidently what they had for dinner that night). Comment.

5. Dmitri learns that Anna Sergeyevna's husband is rich (par. 75). How does this news contribute to our sense of who Anna is?

6. Anna continues to think passionately of Dmitri, as she says in par. 97 ("I am so unhappy . . . .have you come?") Why do you suppose she cares for him as much as she does?

7. "Why did she love him so much? He always seemed to women different from what he was, and they loved in him not himself, but the man created by their imagination, whom they had always been eagerly seeking all their lives. . ." (par. 117). Do you think this is true of the way most of us see others--not as they are but as they seem to be to our imaginations? Assuming yes--how does that make you fell about human beings? Assuming no--how does it make you feel about Dmitri that he has this thought?

8. Note the ending of the story. It would be easy to say that it is unsatisfying, because of the way it fails to resolve things. Can you see a way that the ending is nevertheless effective and artistically appropriate? If so, explain.

The Lady with the Dog 181-185 par 1-40

Yalta


1. Is the story told in the third person point of view, period, or is it told from Dmitri Dmitritch's point of view while at the same time in the third person? What makes you say so?

2. See number (1) above: what difference to the meaning of the story might it make what point of view the story is told from?

3. In the story so far, does one character seem more moral or more sympathetic or more positive than the other (referring to Dmitri and Anna Sergeyevna)? Explain.

4. Why might this story be called "The Lady with the Dog"? How does the dog effect the meaning? Note: we don't hear anything more about the dog than we've already heard.

5. Find a sentence you find important or interesting and say why.

Why I Live at the P.O. par. 90 to the end

1. “Not one bad one in the string.” (95) How is this remark typical of the narrator or her way of expressing herself?

2. How does Uncle Rondo’s throwing firecrackers into the narrator’s room (95) advance our understanding of his character? How does it square with his throwing a nickel to the girl who helps cart the narrator’s belongings to the post office (139)?

3. The narrator takes with here to the post office an extensive number of objects that don’t pertain to her particularly, the way her clothes, for example, might pertain just to her. What do you make of the list of things she takes?

4. The narrator knows about radio offers of free seeds to those who send in a box top; the mother hasn’t heard about such an offer, and is curious. What does this exchange say about the economic or social class of the family? How does your answer square with the fact that her family “are naturally the main people in China Grove” (142)?

5. When all is said and done who do you think is the most mature, psychologically whole person in the family? Why?

6. When all is said and done who do you think is the least mature, least psychologically whole person in the family? Why?

Why I Live at the P.O. 125-129 (par. 30-90)

A small-town post office in Kansas. This story is set in Mississippi, however.


1. Sometimes the narrator says apparently random things, things that don’t directly connect with what she was just saying. For example:

“He’s Mama’s only brother and is a good case of a one-track mind. Ask anybody. A certified pharmacist.” (33)

“You ought to see Mama, she weighs two hundred pounds and has real tiny feet.” (63)

Comment.

2. The narrator seems to feel the need to point out what she sees as the truth—about Stella-Rondo’s child not being really adopted, about the same child not being able to talk (65)(it turns out she can--at least she can sing the words to "Popeye the Salilor Man"). Is this a good quality? If it gets the narrator in trouble, what makes her keep trying to point to reality (as she sees it)?

3. Consider the dialogue at 68-77. Comment.

4. “So that made Mama, Papa-Daddy, and the baby all on Stella-Rondo’s side.” (80) Can you relate this sentence to the title of the story?

5. Why would Uncle Rondo put on Stella-Rondo’s “flesh-colored kimono”?

6. Same question as I’ve been asking about the poems we’ve been looking at: what does this story sound like? That is, what does the sound of this story sound like?

7. Find a sentence you like or find interesting and comment.

Why I Live at the P.O. paragraphs 1-32, pp. 123-125

1. Find something humorous about paragraph 1.

2. Stella-Rondo's child, Shirley-T., is adopted, according to Stella-Rondo, not adopted and biological, according to the narrator. Comment.

3. "Papa-Daddy's Mama's papa and sulks." Comment on this sentence, found in paragraph 8.

4. What do we learn about the post office in this reading?

5. What adjectives might you apply to Papa-Daddy?

6. What adjectives might you apply to Stella-Rondo?

7. Find a sentence that you like or find interesting or find important and explain why.