Discuss the themes addressed in Over the Wall and the devices used
to express and examine these themes
The play ‘Over the Wall’ is very interesting and unique, in that
instead of having names for each part, the parts are numbered from
1-9. This removes all pre-conceptions you may have had of the
characters. The characters keep changing to different numbers
throughout the play; this is to highlight the different types of
people in society. Any number can play and the narration may be shared
out.
The play tells the story of an island community living on an island
with a wall running straight down the middle of it. These people like
to keep themselves to themselves and continue with life the way it
always has been led. They have totally no interest in the wall and all
of the questions that go with it. Except for the one! He is the one
asking all of the questions and searching for the answers. This quest
is not shared at all within the island community and everyone chooses
to ignore this ‘nut’. They are all happy to carry on with their daily
routines in their pointless lives and see him as an outsider.
At the beginning of the play it sounds almost like a fairy tale,
“there was once an island”. It then twists this idea by saying, ‘if
you believe it’. However it quickly shows us the real point and
meaning of the play. The narrator comments on many different social
members in this play and in the first narrator speech he makes a
disparaging remark towards the unemployed, “everyone had a day’s work
(which in those times was considered a blessing)”. He also comments on
people’s attitudes in general towards the young and the elderly, “the
old were looked after, as long as they didn’t outstay their welcome.”
The young also were “respected as individuals – within reason.” This
is so true in modern day societies. The young are not respected
because they are seen as immature and the elderly because they are
boring and frustratingly slow.
The narrator’s first speech ends with “for, while they were not
exactly happy they were not exactly unhappy either.” I think this
highlights the fact that people in society are happy with their daily
life being very mediocre. We put up with this because we are afraid of
change. We sit on the same seat on the bus every day; we have the same
routine when we get back from work. There are so many examples of
these day to day rituals because we are unimaginative.
The characters in the play are stereotyped defined by their language.
Ann Oakley’s “Beyond the Yellow Wallpaper” infers the myth that health is a medical product and that the inequalities between men and women are easily removed. It analyzes the differences between health, health care and medical care in the context of 'women and health', and of women as providers as well as users of these. Using the lessons of a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman called 'The Yellow Wallpaper', the article identifies and discusses the three most important unsolved problems of women and health as: production, reproduction and the medicalization of the psychological costs of women's situation in the form of mental illness. “Beyond the Yellow Wallpaper” then calls for recognition of health as a social product and for women to tell the truth about our own experiences, because these determine women's health. Lastly, the paper shows how women's health-giving role in reproduction and in ensuring family welfare holds the causes of women's ill-health within
this for nearly a year, until change comes walking down the road in the form of
In the article entitled, “Our Cell Phones Ourselves”, Christine Rosen describes how cell phones have changed the way we communicate. Rosen tells the readers the main purpose for cell phone use in the past, versus present day. Her purpose is to make society aware of how cell phones have influenced our lives in order to inspire change as to how we view our cell phones. Rosen directs her writing to everyone in the present day by describing the negative results of cell phone use and how it impacts our lives and those around us. Without a doubt, cell phones are going to be a part of our world, but it is the responsibility of every cell phone owner to exercise self control and understand that a cell phone is nothing more than a device.
The stories “Shouldn't I Feel Pretty?” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” feature a dynamic protagonist who undergoes a character development which reveals the consequences of oppression caused by societal standards. Gilman crafted the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” with the purpose of exposing the tyrannical role of gender roles to women. In the story, the narrator suffers a slight postpartum depression in the beginning, but her condition gets progressively worse because her husband John believes “that there is nothing the matter with [her] but temporary nervous depression-- a slight hysterical tendency” (331). He concludes that the best treatment for his wife is for her to be “absolutely forbidden to ‘work’ until [she is] well again” (332).
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s bodies of work, Gilman highlights scenarios exploring traditional interrelations between man and woman while subtexting the necessity for a reevaluation of the paradigms governing these relations. In both of Gilman’s short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Turned”, women are victimized, subjected and mistreated. Men controlled and enslaved their wives because they saw them as their property. A marriage was male-dominated and women’s lives were dedicated to welfare of home and family in perseverance of social stability. Women are expected to always be cheerful and good-humored. Respectively, the narrator and Mrs. Marroner are subjugated by their husbands in a society in which a relationship dominated by the male is expected.
As man developed more complex social systems, society placed more emphasis of childbearing. Over time, motherhood was raised to the status of “saintly”. This was certainly true in western cultures during the late 19th/early 20th century. Charlotte Perkins Gilman did not agree with the image of motherhood that society proposed to its members at the time. “Arguably ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ reveals women’s frustration in a culture that seemingly glorifies motherhood while it actually relegates women to nursery-prisons” (Bauer 65). Among the many other social commentaries contained within this story, is the symbolic use of the nursery as a prison for the main character.
For many, change is a cause for ignorance. Most of us fear the idea of change. When one is faced to deal with c...
box. We do not always enjoy change, even if it might prove beneficial to us.
“Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman was analyzed by many perspective readers and writers. In my research paper I analyzed work by Ann Oakley and Karen Ford. These two authors had similar but yet different arguments. During my review process on both articles, I found that there can be many interpretations of any literary work. When you typically see topics written about women, you tend to see biased explanations. Reading these from a female standpoint you would go on to assume the writer will only defend what is morally right.
"Use of Modern Technology, an Inevitable Addiction." Africa News Service 22 July 2013. Opposing Viewpoints in Context.
In the short story "The Yellow Wall-Paper," by Charlotte Gilman, the setting contributes to the narrator's insanity. When she first sees the house, she loves it. She thinks the house will be a perfect place to recover from her "nervous condition," but that does not happen because her husband confines her to the bedroom so that her health will improve. The narrator's mental illness deteriorates to the point of insanity due to her isolation in the bedroom, with only the yellow wallpaper to look at that she considers "repellent, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow,strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight" (106).
On August 13, 1961, the residents of East Berlin found themselves cut off from friends, families and jobs in the West by a tangle of barbed wire that ruthlessly cut the city in two. Within days the barbed-wire became a 103-mile-long wall guarded by three hundred watchtowers. The wall symbolized the struggle between Soviet Communism and American capitalism—totalitarianism and freedom. This would take place for the next thirty years (Taylor)
Home, in contemporary literature, often plays an integral role often symbolizing security, unison, and support; although, things were not always this way. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts the all-too-real struggle many women faced in the nineteenth century and earlier. This short passage portrays the narrative of female intellectual oppression – an examination of nineteenth century social mores. The passage voices the common practice of diagnosing women with “rest cure” who displayed symptoms of depression and anxiety with a supposed treatment of lying in bed for several weeks, allowing no more than twenty minutes of intellectual application per day. Women, at this time, were considered to be the second sex – weaker and more fragile, unable to grapple the same daily activities as men – and such the “rest cure” prevents women from using any form of thinking, trusting the notion that naturally the female mind is empty. Not even were
“As he was about to scale the Wall, a border guard opened fire. Peter continued to climb the Wall, but ran out of energy just as he reached the top. He then tumbled back onto the East German side of the Berlin Wall” (Rosenberg, About.com). At the end of World War II, the multiple nations united together in order to bring down Germany. The fall of Germany will always be remembered as a significant breakthrough in history that resulted from the cooperation of the Allied Powers. A decision was made to split Germany into four different sections, each under the separate rule of The United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, the separation of territory caused tensions to rise. The once mutual relationship quickly turned into a competitive and aggressive standoff between East Germany and West Germany. In East Germany stood the Soviet Union and in West Germany stood France, The United States, and Great Britain. Eventually, the living conditions within the two districts became distinctly different. The East quickly became poor as the Soviet Union neglected its new spoil of war. The West prospered with its new capitalist society and rapidly growing economy. Mass emigration quickly took place as people in the Communist East rushed across the border to the democratic West. The Soviet Union out of desperation quickly erected a wall in East Berlin, separating the East from the West. This massive, makeshift bulwark divided the East from the West and came to be known as the Berlin Wall. The establishment of the Berlin Wall caused terrorizing social effects, surprising economic outcomes, and corrupt political impacts throughout East Germany.
Change can have many meanings. It is going from “same” to “different”. Change can be defined as an event that occurs when something passes from one state or phase to another and as a process of transition. The forces of change affect attitudes, beliefs and behavior. Not a single moment goes by when everything in our lives will remain the same. When you become adjusted to your surroundings, something changes again. Changes can affect both individuals and groups. Throughout our lives we go through many changes, especially in adolescence.