Porches are considered a realm between privacy and public. In American society, it’s the difference between Heaven and Earth. Where, people come together and forget their differences just for a good drink and a chat or where people leave and never come back. Porches are a vital part of houses. When you walk down the street or travel through the neighborhoods, many houses have these porches. They come in all different sizes, some are even hidden in the back of the house. While reading this anthology, I discovered that throughout all these stories talk about a form of disfunction. In the story “The Head of the Nail” XII, Daisy Taylor flirted with many married men. Although she wasn’t the prettiest one, she still flirted. One after another,
“A hidden weight seemed to attach itself to simple objects—a teacup, a doorknob, a glass—hardly noticeable at first, beyond the sense that every move required a slightly greater exertion of energy”(187). In Nicole Krauss’ short story, “The Young Painters”, Krauss brings across the idea of guilt swallowing the narrator because of her decision to steal a frightening story told to her by a dancer and recreate the story and publish it as her own work. In the first scene, the author encounters a captivating painter in the dancer’s home which she later discovers has a intense backstory. She later publishes the story as her own but adds a happy twist to deemphasize the horror of the original story. In the second scene, after an odd encounter with
The narrator is forbidden from work and confined to rest and leisure in the text because she is supposedly stricken with, "…temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency," that is diagnosed by both her husband and her brother, who is also a doctor (1).
America has always been a land of opportunity ever since the pilgrims first arrived. During the infancy of America’s history, the country was under developed and would be considered a third world country today. Even though America was under developed compared to the previous motherland of Great Britain it always had the potential to exceed the many limits set upon by others. For example, Andrew Jackson, also known as the man of the people, was raised by a single mother who struggled to raise two other children and struggled with economic hardships. Regardless of his upbringings, Andrew Jackson became the seventh president of the United States in which he invited the public to his inaugural ball. Some people who migrated from other countries to America, such as Frances Trollope, failed to recognize the potential that America had. Instead of Mrs. Trollope acknowledging the promises the newly found country had, she decided to critically compare it to her homeland.
The binding of feet is extremely dangerous. Women today still harm themselves in a different kind of “binding”. What was once a fetish called footbinding, the forcible deformation of feet into the shape of a lotus, was the necessity of a lifestyle dangerous to oneself; although
The narrator, a new mother, is revoked of her freedom to live a free life and denied the fact that she is “sick”, perhaps with postpartum depression, by her husband, a physician, who believes whatever sorrows she is feeling now will pass over soon. The problematic part of this narrative is that this woman is not only kept isolated in a room she wishes to have nothing to do with, but her creative expression is revoked by her husband as we can see when she writes: “there comes John, and I must put this away, - he hates to have me write a word (Gilman,
Even in her defiant disobedience to her husband, she is subconsciously aware of the futility of her struggle. During a fit of violent frustration with her marriage, "she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon th...
Housing segregation is as the taken for granted to any feature of urban life in the United States (Squires, Friedman, & Siadat, 2001). It is the application of denying minority groups, especially African Americans, equal access to housing through misinterpretation, which denies people of color finance services and opportunities to afford decent housing. Caucasians usually live in areas that are mostly white communities. However, African Americans are most likely lives in areas that are racially combines with African Americans and Hispanics. A miscommunication of property owners not giving African American groups gives an accurate description of available housing for a decent area. This book focuses on various concepts that relates to housing segregation and minority groups living apart for the majority group.
"In a little four-room house around the corner. It looks so cozy, so inviting and restful."(79) With this description Chopin introduces the reader to Edna’s new residence, which is affectionately known as the pigeon house. The pigeon house provides Edna with the comfort and security that her old house lacked. The tranquility that the pigeon house grants to Edna allows her to experience a freedom that she has never felt before.
Written in 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story that explores the mind of a woman who is driven to insanity by her surrounding environment. This woman, who narrates her experiences in a journal, begins by marveling at the grandeur of the estate her husband has taken for their summer vacation. Her feeling that there is “something queer” (307) about the situation leads her into a discussion of her illness. The narrator describes that she is suffering from “nervous depression” (308) and of her marriage. She confesses that her husband John, who is additionally her doctor, belittles both her illness and her overall concerns. John contrasts the narrator’s creative, thoughtfulness with his pragmatic and analytical
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is the story of a woman descending into psychosis in a creepy tale which depicts the harm of an old therapy called “rest cure.” This therapy was used to treat women who had “slight hysterical tendencies” and depression, and basically it consisted of the inhibition of the mental processes. The label “slight hysterical tendency” indicates that it is not seen as a very important issue, and it is taken rather lightly. It is also ironic because her illness is obviously not “slight” by any means, especially towards the end when the images painted of her are reminiscent of a psychotic, maniacal person, while she aggressively tears off wallpaper and confuses the real world with her alternative world she has fabricated that includes a woman trapped in the wallpaper. The narrator of this story grows obsessed with the wallpaper in her room because her husband minimizes her exposure to the outside world and maximizes her rest. Academic essayists such as Susan M. Gilbert, Susan Gubar, and Elaine Showalter have a feminist reading of the story, however, this is not the most important reading. The author experienced the turmoil of the rest cure personally, which means that the story is most likely a comment on the great mistreatment of depression, hysteria and mental disorders in general. Despite the claims of Gilbert, Gubar, and Showalter that “The Yellow Wallpaper” is solely feminist propaganda, their analysis is often unnecessarily deep and their claims are often unwarranted, resulting in an inaccurate description of a story that is most importantly about the general mistreatment of psychosis and the descent into insanity regardless of gender.
The short story “Petrified Man” by Eudora Welty is about two women—Leota, a beautician, and Mrs. Fletcher, her customer—who spend the entire story gossiping in a beauty parlor. The story is told in a limited third-person point of view, where the psychic distance of the view places the reader right next to Mrs. Fletcher and Leota, hearing and seeing only what someone present in the scene would. Their gossip tells the reader the stories of this piece, that of Mr. and Mrs. Pike and of the Petrified Man. However, this is not the main focus. Welty uses this short story to comment on the appearance obsessed, judgmental, and flighty nature of people, especially southern women. This is done through Mrs. Fletcher’s comments about what Mrs. Pike must
Signs of the depth of the narrator's mental illness are presented early in the story. The woman starts innocently enough with studying the patterns of the paper but soon starts to see grotesque images in it, "There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a...
For example, after being told about the disturbing wallpaper, John fails to remove the wallpaper because he truly believes that the yellow wallpaper lets his wife to get better. John sincerely tries to make it easier for his wife, however, his ignorant behavior worsens the illness. John is so competent about his own good judgement, and, thus, by paying no attention to the narrator’s own viewpoint of the depression’s treatment, he forces and pushes his wife to secrete her real emotional state. In addition, John constantly treats his wife with an apparent kindness that betrays a feeling of his superiority. In fact, the last thing he would like is to ruin his wife emotionally and spiritually, however, he refuses to treat her as an individual with her own desires and thoughts. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Gilman give the reader an effective evidence that spouse’s failure to pay the proper emotional attention is one feature of passive force which hurts and damages wives. In every society, whether it is one hundred years ago or at present time, there are some husbands who intentionally disregard the existence of women as well as they do not encourage wives’ individual and unique growth. Furthermore, because marriage is assumed to be a union of equal spouses, particular ignorance of wives’ personal position usually leads to women’ depression
From the beginning, details in the story suggested that she was an artistic, creative person. She makes comments about the yellow wallpaper in her recounts, bringing attention to the “…sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” and the “…bloated curves and flourishes- a kind of “debased Romanesque” with delirium tremens”; something that would only be noticed by someone acquainted with art (Gilman 238 & 241). Also, her husband John makes reference to her “…imaginative power and habit of story-making”, further suggesting her creative intuition (239). With this in mind, a new outlook on her degrading mental state can be reached in regards to her inability to express herself due to the resting cure. The main character frequently references her desire to do any amount of
The Wife of Bath presents the argument that her marriages, sexual openness, and powerful female personality are all the result of her gapped tooth. Something so simple has created an obligation to destiny to seek out and marry many men. She is neither ashamed nor repentant for her actions because she believes they are out of her control. She is proud that her actions allow her to fulfill her destiny and make herself happy and powerful in the process. Her gapped tooth is a conspicuous physical feature acting as a symbol to everyone around her to reveal the kind of woman she is and the type of life she is destined to lead.