Ann and John, two characters from he short story "The Painted Door", do not have a very healthy relationship. John is a simple farmer who thinks the only way he can please his wife, Ann, is by working all day to earn money for her. However Ann would prefer him to spend more time with her. Their relationship is stressed even further when Ann is left at home alone with nothing to think about but their relationship because John has to go to his father’s house. The terrible snowstorm accentuates Ann’s feelings of loneliness and despair. John does not pay enough attention to Ann, and therefore creates a weak relationship.
Ann is justified in her decision to "sleeps" with Steven, John’s friend. John has not been paying much attention to Ann and he leaves her alone in their house with Steven. Ann also has prior feelings for Steven from when they where in school together. Ann felt that she is unimportant to John because he frequently leaves her alone; she states, "It isn't right to leave me here alone. Surely I'm as important as your father." Ann just wants to feel loved by John but because he doesn't make her feel loved. She sees Steven as the only person who can give her the love and affection she needs.
John's decision to commit suicide was the right thing to do to make Ann happy. John thought that killing himself would make it easier for her to stay with Steven, who he thinks that she loves. John made a decision about his own life so he has the right to choose to kill himself. He also just wants Ann to be happy. He is "naively proud of Ann. He had bewildered by it once, her caring for a dull-witted fellow like him: then assured al last of her affection he had relaxed against it gratefully, unsuspecting it might ever be less constant than his own." (Pg.49) In John's mind he was making the right decision, so he was free to make it.
Ann is the most to blame for her depression, her affair with Steven, and John’s suicide.
In the short story, “The Painted Door”, John and Ann are a married couple, who have been together for seven years, and yet despite this fact, they still have trouble communicating. Ann wishes, from the very beginning of the story, that John would stay at home with her rather than go to check on his father. However, rather than expressing these sentiments exactly, she acts very cold towards him and insists that she’ll be perfectly fine, trying to guilt him into staying. Though it works, as John offers to stay with her rather than visiting his father’s farm, Ann decides to instead push away her feelings of spite and loneliness and allows him to leave, despite worrying about his safety and how she’s going to cope while John is gone. This is the
John has great expectation placed upon him by his family and suicide seems to only way out for him. His death is an important part of Josie's discovery process as she comes to realise that while she is poor, she is also free to pursue any sort of life that she wants. John's life, however, was pre-ordained and he had to die in order to achieve his emancipation.
In “The Painted Door” Anne’s loneliness forces her to find some means to occupy her time and she decides to paint the walls despite the futility of such an act in the cold of a Saskatchewan winter: “The frost in the walls on a day like this would crack and peel [the paint] as it dried, but she needed something to keep her hands occupied, something to stave off the gathering cold and loneliness” (50). Clearly, Ross has set this image up as a representation of Ann’s inability to explore the real issues of her strained relationship with John. Just as a solid foundation is necessary for a sturdy structure, so too is it necessary for a strong relationship. However, Ann’s attempt to cover over the cracks in the walls is really an attempt to cover up and avoid facing the flaws in her relationship, which we recognize will only lead to more problems in the future. Furthermore, her need to keep her hands busy could be seen as a reference to her later infidelity with Steven, an act that will, for a short time, stave off the loneliness she feels in a marriage she has begun to view as cold and unfulfilling. It is only when Ann is forced, through boredom, to face her unhappiness that she recognizes the true cause of her unhappiness – the problem in the foundation. With a ticking clock in the background – an obvious representation of the monotony of Ann’s life – Ann explores her disillusionment
The dilemmas, developed from the motivation, compel the characters to resolve their conflicts. In "The Painted Door", Ann is struggling in a violent tumult of mental and emotional anguish and trying to find importance in life. The conflict arises in her decision to gratify one of two goals; immediate satisfaction, sleeping with Steven, or long term satisfaction, the love and support of her faithful dependable husband. Ann also faces a conflict between a social need and an emotional need. Initially with John she feels she can't connect to society because "John never talks [He] never danced or enjoyed himself" (Ross 160-162), however after sleeping with Steven her guilt leads her to realize that "John is the man with him lay all the future" (174) and only with him can she be completely and emotionally fulfilled.
The narrator is trying to get better from her illness but her husband “He laughs at me so about this wallpaper” (515). He puts her down and her insecurities do not make it any better. She is treated like a child. John says to his wife “What is it little girl” (518)? Since he is taking care of her she must obey him “There comes John, and I must put this away, he hates to have me write a word”. The narrator thinks John is the reason why she cannot get better because he wants her to stay in a room instead of communicating with the world and working outside the house.
The story is taking place in a prairie. The first line of pg. 47 declares that. The same page is talking about a storm might be coming. I guess, there is a ocean near the prairie. On pg. 48, I found that the prairie landscape is discomforting due to the fact that it seems alive. It also talks about the farmsteads are there to intensify the situation. That same page talking about putting fire. It is taking place during winter, and may be somewhere during December. I think, the time is during the Great Depression of 1930's. In pg. 51 we found that John's farm is under mortgage. The same page tells, He works hard too much to earn some dollars. From pg. 52, I also found, he does not appoint any helper. In pg. 52, Ann remembers about their good time as well. Now, they are not having that of a easy life. They are tired by the labour. These all quotations proves that, the setting of the story is in a hill during the great depression of 1930's.
Even though her husband treats her with what seem at first as love, it becomes clear she is nothing more to him than a piece of property. Every time he talks to her, he asks her to get better for his sake and the children's, and only after mentions hers interests. He doesn't think that she has any normal human feelings or worries and attributes her behavior to minor nervous depression. He doesn't see her true suffering since he believes "there is no reason to suffer" (574). He could never understand that a woman can be unsatisfied with the role imposed on her by society. Even though the heroine recognizes that her condition is caused by something other than John's theory, she is too scared to voice her opinion.
night, shows her jealousy and lust for him which adds to the tension as John is doing his best to
On the other hand; the stranger in Ann’s life, John Loomis, had an extremely negative impact. Mr Loomis presents a major threat to Ann’s life and scares her out of her own home. It was his intrusion that led to the death of her dog and drove Ann to make the decision to escape and find other life. While we do not find out what happened to Ann in the end, we are filled with hope by her viewing of the birds flying around in the poisoned habitat.
However, the reader must always keep in mind the time at which this piece was written and how these relationships exemplify the realities of personal relationships during this time era. Her relationship with John is dominated by him and is almost like she is the child. Without anyone to speak to about her true feelings and stresses, she writes, another thing she must hide from John and Jennie. The reader feels a sense of fear from the narrator, “there comes John, and I must put this away,—he hates to have me write a word” (Gilman 78). Yet another sign of how he does not want his wife thinking for herself and doing what she pleases. When learning about the author and her background, her feminist side shows in this piece through examples like these. The true dark sides of marriage, the loneliness, and the female role of always being superior are portrayed perfectly in this short
...k’s repeated writings of the words “I Need You” to his wife seem ethically and morally conflicting to Ann as, in the midst of all that has occurred between Jack and Ann, his message is so blatantly out of character for Jack’s communicative style. Initially, Jack’s choice of words may represent Jack’s true need for his wife’s help, as he is dependent on her because of his medical condition. It soon becomes clear that Jack’s verbiage represents his true emotions and, as Jack utters his first words to his wife following his surgery, the repair of Jack and Ann’s relationship truly begins.
In order to gain that experience they will be unfaithful to their partners. Curiosity is a characteristic that many people have. In order to satisfy their curiosity they search for an exciting adventurous journey to go on. In this short story it clearly states that Ann has the desire to be adventurous as shown in the statement: “She was young still, eager for excitement and distractions”(54). Whereas John is the polar opposite of Ann. Therefore Ann betrays John with Steven since Steven gave her these feelings that she wanted to rediscover. He gives her his full attention, something that she lacked from John. This is shown from the actions of steven: “he was watching her, smiling”(62). Following this action, Ann “raised her head and met his eyes again”(62). In this moment it truly pictures a typical love-stricken couple which is not visible in Ann and John’s relationship. In addition, her new relationship with Steven is just like the start of a new adventure. Moreover, people would love to experience the thrill again of discovering new love. In the short story, Ann portrays characteristics of someone who has just discovered new love as she acts rigid and forgets to breath while in front of Steven. This is shown when the author describes her: “She dared not move, unclench her hands, or raise her eyes”(62) and “Intending that it should be for only an instant, just to breath
John, the husband of the narrator, believes based on his professional knowledge that it is better for her to stay in a room until she makes a sense of improvement. The authoritative role that John plays in the story makes him the independent variable due to his actions of manipulation, lack of empathy, and absence of concern over what her wife needs to say. Even though the narrator wants to be heard, she remains with a submissive attitude throughout the story making her the dependent variable by leaving her entire illness inside John’s hands[responsibility]. John at this point has the power to take her condition to a total different direction but instead decides to ignore what she has to say and completely rely on his assumptions, which evidently lead to a tragic
John’s approach appears to be logical as he decided it would be better for his wife to escape her depression by moving temporary to an isolated estate where air, water, greenery, and calmness should be the uplifting factors in his wife’s journey towards gaining strength and getting better. The narrator disagrees with her husband’s decisions on how she should stay and do what he decided for her in this retreat, but follows his orders regardless. John’s treatment of his wife consists of medical prescriptions, “I take phosphates or phosphites-whichever it is-and tonics,...
The wife always wants to please the husband and listen to his word as though it was law. She never wants to displease her husband or go against any of his advice. This is apparent when the wife quits writing, which calms her down, just because her husband feels that it would be better for her. The wife takes the man’s advice in this situation, because that is what society has trained her to do. In her mind she is not her own person, she is only John’s wife.