“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a disturbing look into the mind of a woman who has been pushed past her emotional cliff-face into the turbulent seas of insanity. This woman, who is obviously not her in right mind to begin with, is forced into a small room where she is not permitted to do anything even remotely active. All she can do to occupy her time is lie there and let her imagination run wild.
This freedom of her mind is what conjures up the woman behind the wallpaper. This feral woman who claws at her surroundings is trapped, unable to free herself, and becomes even more bestial by the moment. The woman behind the wallpaper is obviously a physical representation of the real wife’s subconscious. Not able to express herself through what many would call normal means, forcing herself to put on this docile, domestic mask in front of her husband, friends, and company, living day after day, week after week, staying subservient to her husband who does not allow her even to express herself or show any part of her personality but for her meek-tempered, apologetic, docile housemaid side, forces her to bottle her emotions and psychosis deep within her, where it builds and builds until it is unable to contain itself and erupts from her subconscious, projecting itself onto the walls in a physical manifestation of her inner turmoil in an act which finally frees her from the constraints imposed upon her by outside forces and allows her inner personality to reign free.
What the wife sees behind the wallpaper is actually herself. This is confirmed at the end with the transformation of the wife into the woman. Despite the placid outward appearance, an inner war is waging within the wife. It was only a matter of time before that inner turmoil was able to burst free from the mild-mannered wife’s outer façade.
The story is also a commentary on the social position of women at the time. The wife is forced into trying to change herself for her husband and to meet the expectations society has of her. She is not expected to express herself. She is not expected to think for herself. She is not even expected to act for herself. The wife is pressed into this mold the society of the time expects all women to fit within and in order to do this, she must subdue her true self. She is slowly drowning, losing herself to the demands of her patriarchal society. As Sylvia Plath described, the wife is a woman “in the bell jar, [whose life is as] blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream.”
The yellow wallpaper of the dilapidated room symbolizes the binding confines of society from which the crazed woman -- the wife’s tormented subconscious -- tries desperately to escape. This ugly, peeling, wallpaper is society’s hidden, unattractive side which forces the wife to conform.
At the conclusion of the story, the subconscious of the wife has finally burst forth, transformed by the repression into a twisted, vicious, shade of a person. The story is a lesson regarding the stifling of one’s true self and the consequences of such an action. Because, really, who wants to turn into the lady behind the wallpaper? (551)
Monday, September 29, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
On the Husband and The S.A.R
The characters that Raymond Carver creates in his short story “Cathedral,” simply put, are more than they appear. At first glance, the husband of the story seems like a shallow, simple character. A character one might find more at home as a secondary character in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, perhaps, or in any novel written by Stephenie Meyer. However, when read more closely, the depth of the character of the husband begins to show through.
We get the initial and most revealing view of the husband--a character who we never learn the actual name of--through the narration of the story, as it is told in the first person through his eyes. The reader learns about the character merely through the ways he describes things. We listen to his tone, his inflections, his somewhat bitter and sarcastic comments. (And yes, I say “listen” despite the fact that the reader never literally hears a sound but for the turning of the pages.) The husband’s thoughts are short and clear. Never flowery. Always efficient. At first read, throughout most of the novel, the husband seems aloof, slightly bitter, quiet, and almost apathetic. He is reluctant to let the blind man, Robert, sleep at his house. He has a drinking problem. He smokes cannabis. He isn’t religious. He leads what some may call an uneventful, slightly depressing life. He simply lives from day to day, forcing himself through the routine of everyday life. To those who don’t take the time to read into the character, it must seem like he doesn’t care about anything at all.
This idea of the husband not caring, however, is a false one. In fact, the character who seems so rough and apathetic on the outside shows the reader his thoughtful half throughout the course of his narration. The first one and a half pages are dedicated not to himself, or the setting, or the theme, but instead to telling the reader all about his wife. The fact that he’s bitter about “the man who’d first enjoyed [his wife’s] favors,” (4) is a sign of how much he actually cares about her. How much the wife actually cares for her husband, however, is a different essay. Despite what her actual feelings are for the man who married her, the husband cares for her more than he ever lets on in the story. He tries to be hospitable to the man his wife is obviously more interested in than her own husband and later even tries to protect her modesty in front of him. These are not the actions of a man apathetic to his wife.
The husband is also a character who can easily put himself in another person’s situation. (The exception to this power is, of course, the fact that he cannot put himself in the mind of a blind man. At first, anyway.) When he hears the story of Robert’s wife, Beulah, his heart actually goes out to the woman. He feels for the “pitiful life this woman must have led.” (15) He even is shocked and saddened over the thought of “a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one.” That’s a powerful, emotional thought no two-dimensional character could ever conceive.
Strangely enough, the character of the husband reminds me of another complex character found in a famous novel of one of Raymond Carver’s main influences. That character: Jake Barnes. That author: none other than the influential Ernest Hemingway. Both characters seem apathetic and both are almost completely disillusioned with the world around them. Both are fans of alcohol. And both have much more complex emotions than they actually let on. Not to get on too much of a tangent, but Jake Barnes, like the husband, sets up this exterior shield which hides his true self from others around him. The two characters both have an amazing amount of love (Yes, you heard correctly, Ernest Hemingway wrote about love!) within them that they are either afraid or unwilling to show. Anyway, while not important to the character development in the short story, I merely wanted to point out that were these two characters ever to meet, they would have “such a damned good time together.”
We never learn the name of the narrator, this husband who has a much deeper side than he lets on, but we learn so much more about this character’s character that one hardly cares! His name seems almost trivial in the grand scheme of things. And what’s amazing is that we learn all about this character merely through his narration of one simple evening spent with his wife and her blind friend. And think about it. If the husband did not have this hidden, softer side, he would never go through the powerful transformation that he does at the end of the story. Where would the be story be then?(819)
Why is the husband so reluctant to express this softer side to those around him?
Why *don’t* we learn the wife and the husband’s names?
Why *do* we learn Robert and Beulah’s names?
What’s the deal with the whole dinner scene?
What happened at the end of the story? How? Why?
We get the initial and most revealing view of the husband--a character who we never learn the actual name of--through the narration of the story, as it is told in the first person through his eyes. The reader learns about the character merely through the ways he describes things. We listen to his tone, his inflections, his somewhat bitter and sarcastic comments. (And yes, I say “listen” despite the fact that the reader never literally hears a sound but for the turning of the pages.) The husband’s thoughts are short and clear. Never flowery. Always efficient. At first read, throughout most of the novel, the husband seems aloof, slightly bitter, quiet, and almost apathetic. He is reluctant to let the blind man, Robert, sleep at his house. He has a drinking problem. He smokes cannabis. He isn’t religious. He leads what some may call an uneventful, slightly depressing life. He simply lives from day to day, forcing himself through the routine of everyday life. To those who don’t take the time to read into the character, it must seem like he doesn’t care about anything at all.
This idea of the husband not caring, however, is a false one. In fact, the character who seems so rough and apathetic on the outside shows the reader his thoughtful half throughout the course of his narration. The first one and a half pages are dedicated not to himself, or the setting, or the theme, but instead to telling the reader all about his wife. The fact that he’s bitter about “the man who’d first enjoyed [his wife’s] favors,” (4) is a sign of how much he actually cares about her. How much the wife actually cares for her husband, however, is a different essay. Despite what her actual feelings are for the man who married her, the husband cares for her more than he ever lets on in the story. He tries to be hospitable to the man his wife is obviously more interested in than her own husband and later even tries to protect her modesty in front of him. These are not the actions of a man apathetic to his wife.
The husband is also a character who can easily put himself in another person’s situation. (The exception to this power is, of course, the fact that he cannot put himself in the mind of a blind man. At first, anyway.) When he hears the story of Robert’s wife, Beulah, his heart actually goes out to the woman. He feels for the “pitiful life this woman must have led.” (15) He even is shocked and saddened over the thought of “a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one.” That’s a powerful, emotional thought no two-dimensional character could ever conceive.
Strangely enough, the character of the husband reminds me of another complex character found in a famous novel of one of Raymond Carver’s main influences. That character: Jake Barnes. That author: none other than the influential Ernest Hemingway. Both characters seem apathetic and both are almost completely disillusioned with the world around them. Both are fans of alcohol. And both have much more complex emotions than they actually let on. Not to get on too much of a tangent, but Jake Barnes, like the husband, sets up this exterior shield which hides his true self from others around him. The two characters both have an amazing amount of love (Yes, you heard correctly, Ernest Hemingway wrote about love!) within them that they are either afraid or unwilling to show. Anyway, while not important to the character development in the short story, I merely wanted to point out that were these two characters ever to meet, they would have “such a damned good time together.”
We never learn the name of the narrator, this husband who has a much deeper side than he lets on, but we learn so much more about this character’s character that one hardly cares! His name seems almost trivial in the grand scheme of things. And what’s amazing is that we learn all about this character merely through his narration of one simple evening spent with his wife and her blind friend. And think about it. If the husband did not have this hidden, softer side, he would never go through the powerful transformation that he does at the end of the story. Where would the be story be then?(819)
Why is the husband so reluctant to express this softer side to those around him?
Why *don’t* we learn the wife and the husband’s names?
Why *do* we learn Robert and Beulah’s names?
What’s the deal with the whole dinner scene?
What happened at the end of the story? How? Why?
Monday, September 15, 2008
On Baba O'Riley and Teenage Wasteland
I merely thought I'd post this video for those who would like to listen to the song referred to in the short story. The song is called Baba O'Riley (not Teenage Wasteland as many assume) and was written by Pete Townshend of the Who.
Enjoy!
(Also, if you wait until the end of the video, you can watch a few Who music videos as well!)
Enjoy!
(Also, if you wait until the end of the video, you can watch a few Who music videos as well!)
On Miss Emily and J.K. Rowling
Miss Emily in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily is a woman with a problem. And no, I am not speaking of her problem with necrophilia. (Though, that is related to her larger problem.) Miss Emily is a character who simply cannot let go. She cannot bear to see the people she loves leave her and that is what compels this lovely, Southern woman to act in ways one would not think possible.
Grief, and the feelings of loneliness that accompany them, are experienced by all people. The way others choose to deal with these feelings, however, vary from person to person. Miss Emily has difficultly moving past the first step of grief: Denial. When she experiences the death of her father, Miss Emily refuses to even acknowledge his death for three days! This denial is even brought to the extreme when she kills Homer rather than lose him, and even refuses to let go of the dead body, preferring instead to lie with the corpse night after night than admit to herself that he, and her father for that matter, is dead.
This fear and hatred of death is nothing special and haunts most cultures around the world. Miss Emily’s unwillingness to admit that those she loved have left her reminds me of “The Tale of the Three Brothers” mentioned in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This story is about three brothers who, after cheating Death out of their lives, are each granted a wish. The eldest brother asks for a wand more powerful than any in existence. By this reasoning, he considers himself more powerful than Death. His wish is granted and he receives the wand, but shortly enough, after bragging to all around him of the wand’s power, the eldest brother is killed and his wand stolen. Thus, Death claims the first brother. The middle brother, whose love had perished, asks for a stone that can return those who have died to the living world. With it, he calls back his love from Death. However, this woman is not the one who left him. She is a soul trapped in the mortal world and curses her fate. The middle brother is thus driven to suicide by watching the woman he once loved suffer. Thus, Death claims the second brother. However, the youngest brother asks for an invisibility cloak. He then hides from Death for the rest of his long life, fathering a son, and in turn passing the cloak to the boy when he is finally ready to walk with Death as his equal.
Miss Emily is most similar to the middle brother. Both of the two refuse to let the ones they love pass “through the veil.” However, the obsession they have is unhealthy as it prevents them from moving on with their lives. Both unable to even pass the first stage of grief cripples the two to a point of stasis. The two are both very relatable though, despite the fact that one is a borderline necrophiliac, as who would not wish a dead loved one to return?
Death haunts us all. We know of no way to escape it or reverse it. This is what makes it imperative to find ways to deal with it. Society usually frowns upon necrophilia, so it’s best to find a more suitable way to deal with your insecurity about lost.
Simply put: If you can’t deal with loss, I suggest you seek professional help rather than kill your lover and sleep with his dead body. Just a thought. (593)
Grief, and the feelings of loneliness that accompany them, are experienced by all people. The way others choose to deal with these feelings, however, vary from person to person. Miss Emily has difficultly moving past the first step of grief: Denial. When she experiences the death of her father, Miss Emily refuses to even acknowledge his death for three days! This denial is even brought to the extreme when she kills Homer rather than lose him, and even refuses to let go of the dead body, preferring instead to lie with the corpse night after night than admit to herself that he, and her father for that matter, is dead.
This fear and hatred of death is nothing special and haunts most cultures around the world. Miss Emily’s unwillingness to admit that those she loved have left her reminds me of “The Tale of the Three Brothers” mentioned in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This story is about three brothers who, after cheating Death out of their lives, are each granted a wish. The eldest brother asks for a wand more powerful than any in existence. By this reasoning, he considers himself more powerful than Death. His wish is granted and he receives the wand, but shortly enough, after bragging to all around him of the wand’s power, the eldest brother is killed and his wand stolen. Thus, Death claims the first brother. The middle brother, whose love had perished, asks for a stone that can return those who have died to the living world. With it, he calls back his love from Death. However, this woman is not the one who left him. She is a soul trapped in the mortal world and curses her fate. The middle brother is thus driven to suicide by watching the woman he once loved suffer. Thus, Death claims the second brother. However, the youngest brother asks for an invisibility cloak. He then hides from Death for the rest of his long life, fathering a son, and in turn passing the cloak to the boy when he is finally ready to walk with Death as his equal.
Miss Emily is most similar to the middle brother. Both of the two refuse to let the ones they love pass “through the veil.” However, the obsession they have is unhealthy as it prevents them from moving on with their lives. Both unable to even pass the first stage of grief cripples the two to a point of stasis. The two are both very relatable though, despite the fact that one is a borderline necrophiliac, as who would not wish a dead loved one to return?
Death haunts us all. We know of no way to escape it or reverse it. This is what makes it imperative to find ways to deal with it. Society usually frowns upon necrophilia, so it’s best to find a more suitable way to deal with your insecurity about lost.
Simply put: If you can’t deal with loss, I suggest you seek professional help rather than kill your lover and sleep with his dead body. Just a thought. (593)
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