The Lonely Ones

Human beings are social creatures. We evolved from mammals that like to interact with each other and our environment. Even today you can see signs that we are very social creatures. Sites like Facebook and Twitter make it easier than ever to stay in touch with people from our past, and to meet new people. The recent Maker movement, in which people are leveraging the power of the Internet to share project ideas and tips is also evidence that we like to interact and change our environment. Thanks to the Internet it is easier than ever to stay in touch and interact with our environment. However, back in the time that "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell was written, the Internet had not even been conceived of yet. As a result, when isolated from the rest of the world, many people went insane from the lack of interaction, especially women. Women are often times more social the men are, as the parents of any teenage daughter with a cellphone can tell you. For a woman, being cut off from meaningful social interaction, even if they do not have a texting or Facebook addiction, can lead to insanity, as shown in "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell.

In "The Yellow Wallpaper" the wife is diagnosed by her husband with a nervous disorder and is commanded to rest for an entire summer to recover, as was common back in the time the story was written. She is placed in a room with only her husband to keep her company, a few pieces of furniture, and this horrid yellow wallpaper. She is forbidden to write and so she sneaks it in secret. Back in the day, this may have seemed like the best advice to cure a woman's nervous dis...

... middle of paper ...

...of the world. It is because of this interaction has become so common, and so easy, that people forget just how important it is in their lives. If this meaningful interaction does not exist in peoples' lives, then they would quickly go insane. So go and talk to a family member, or a friend. Enjoy the conversation. For without this interaction, people, as shown by Minnie Foster and the wife from "The Yellow Wallpaper", would quickly fall to insanity.

Works Cited

Charters, Ann, and Samuel Charters. "A Jury of Her Peers." Literature and Its Writers: a Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 5th ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. 185-201. Print.

Charters, Ann, and Samuel Charters. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Literature and Its Writers: a Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 5th ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. 172-84. Print.