Audio version of "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Click HERE to listen.
Click HERE to listen.
For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia-and beyond. During about the third year of this trouble I went, in devout faith and some faint stir of hope, to a noted specialist in nervous diseases, the best known in the country. This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which a still good physique responded so promptly that he concluded that there was nothing much the matter with me, and sent me home with solemn advice to 'live as domestic a life as possible,' to 'have but two hours' intelligent life a day,' and 'never to touch pen, brush or pencil again as long as I lived.' This was in 1887…
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "Why I Wrote the Yellow Wall-paper," 1913
Click HERE to read the whole article.
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "Why I Wrote the Yellow Wall-paper," 1913
Click HERE to read the whole article.
The 19th Century Woman
Nineteenth-century Domestic Spheres
How do the primary documents on these websites portray the roles of middle-class men and women in the early- to mid-nineteenth century?
What do you think of these roles? How are the roles similar or different from today's roles for women? Choose a word or phrase that summarizes your reactions or new understandings. |
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Women's Rights and the Suffrage Movement
Choose a word or phrase that summarizes your reactions or new understandings.
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What prompted the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention?
What most surprised your group about Stanton's outline of women's rights (or lack thereof) in 1848? For which key elements of change did women advocate in the several decades leading up to women's official right to vote in 1920? |
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Popular Representations of Women in the 1880s-1910s
Choose a word or phrase that summarizes your reactions or new understandings.
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What do you notice (dress, activity, expressions, etc.) about the lunching women in "A Hasty Lunch" in comparison to other women in the background of the photo (e.g., the woman with the man and children)?
What roles for women are portrayed? What commentaries and critiques are depicted in the representations you have found? Explain. |
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The New Woman
What new roles are represented for women in the 1880s-1910s?
In what activities did the "The New Woman" engage? How would you describe "The New Woman" in terms of her social and economic background Choose a word or phrase that summarizes your reactions or new understandings. |
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- Based on your new understandings of women in the 19th century, what surprised you most?
- What information resonated with you and will remain in your long term memory?
- What questions do you still have about women in the 19th century? What do we still need to explore?
Psychoanalytic Theory
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Hysteria
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Huffington Post: 7 Crazy Things People Used to Believe about the Ladies' Disease
Somatoform Disorder: Click HERE for a medical overview
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Rest Cure
"Mitchell believed the point of the rest cure was physical and moral. It boosted the patient’s weight and increased blood supply. It also removed the patient from a potentially toxic social atmosphere at home. However, the implicit point was the neurologist breaking his (almost always female) patient’s will. Some outspoken and independent women received the rest cure. These included writers Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. They reacted fiercely against the treatment and doctors practising it, and wrote about the experience. Later feminist scholars argued the rest cure reinforced an archaic and oppressive notion that women should submit unquestioningly to male authority because it was good for their health." Click HERE for source
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Silas Weir Mitchell, M.D. - The most prominent U.S physician in the treatment of neurasthenia (late 1800s). Developer of the rest cure.
Characteristics of treatment:
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Hysteria discussion questions:
- What is hysteria and the rest cure?
- Why did doctors believe women suffered from this disease?
- Do you agree that the rest cure reinforced the "oppressive notion that women should submit unquestioningly to male authority because it was good for their health?" Why or why not?
- What surprised you the most about hysteria? Why?
Case Study: Freud and "Dora"
Read about Dora under the heading "Freud and evidence" in the pdf entitled "Psychoanalytic Criticism" at the top of this section (pages 98-100).
Discussion Questions:
Read about Dora under the heading "Freud and evidence" in the pdf entitled "Psychoanalytic Criticism" at the top of this section (pages 98-100).
Discussion Questions:
- Note down Dora's family background. How might this have affected her mental state?
- Why do you think Freud misread or misrepresented sexual abuse as fantasies?
- What do you make of Freud's interpretation of Dora's "neurotic" reaction to Mr K's advancements?
Bringing it all together
19th century women Psychoanalysis Freud Weir Hysteria
- Where do you see connections between hysteria and the socio-historical context context of the time?
Record responses on the blog.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" analysis
If you can't define these words to a friend and provide an example, do yourself a favor and look them up. Use these words in your every day analysis of our texts.
- Feminism
- Misogyny
- Patriarch (n) / Patriarchy (n) / Patriarchal (adj)
- Phallic
- Hysteria
- Oppression
- Subjugation
- Infantilize
- Subordination
Setting
Essential Question: To what extent does the setting reveal larger themes within the short story?
Focus on pages 1-4
Focus on pages 1-4
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Activity 1: Diction and Setting
Highlight words and phrases to describe the home. Compare and contrast the connotation of the adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. What message is being portrayed about the house?
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Close reading: The narrator's room
Culminating question:
Which themes and big ideas are being revealed through the settings? |
Solitary Confinement: Modern day comparison?
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Characterization
The following characterization task should take you no less than four hours. While I am away, you can decide how you spend those four hours. If you choose not to sit in the classroom during our class times to work, you must dedicate four hours on your own time to these tasks.
Essential Questions:
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Some terms for character analysis:
Narrative voice Point of view Protagonist Antagonist |
Task: John & narrator
Create a detailed character profile for each character. For each category, list examples and provide direct quotations. Don't forget to analyze quotations. It is not enough just to list quotations. What does the quotation reveal about the character and why? Below is simply a suggested format for tracking ideas.
Create a detailed character profile for each character. For each category, list examples and provide direct quotations. Don't forget to analyze quotations. It is not enough just to list quotations. What does the quotation reveal about the character and why? Below is simply a suggested format for tracking ideas.
- Biography: What do we know? What do we not know?
- At the beginning: What does the character think, do, say, and feel?
- At the end: What does the character think, do, say, and feel?
- For each character, describe how the character has changed and why you think he/she has changed. Be detailed.
After you've analyzed both characters, write a blog post analysis for the following question:
All blog posts must be published by Tuesday, 9 September
- To what extent are the two main characters representative figures?
All blog posts must be published by Tuesday, 9 September
Monday, 15 September
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Characters and Symbolism
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Essential Questions:
- To what extent are the main characters trapped in their gender roles?
- How do the symbols connect to larger themes and issues in the text?
Character Discussion
- To what extent are the main characters trapped in their gender roles?
- How does the narrator relate to her husband differently from how a twenty first century reader might, to such a man? For example, how do you feel about: "John says I mustn’t lose strength" and how do you respond to her apparent helplessness and her "unreasonable" anger? Consider his final words, which are an instruction albeit couched in endearing terms: "Open the door, my darling!"
The bed
How does she feel about her bed and why? Her journal
How is the journal also a motif? What evidence is there to suggest that she might also be writing on the wall? Time: Day and Night
Research "Artemis." Who is she? How is she connected to the moon? What does she represent? What does the narrator do during the day/night? How might this link to her feelings of oppression? The garden
Why is she always looking outside? The Wallpaper
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Overarching inquiry question:
What is the underlying symbolism for each of the items? At your station, complete the following:
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Punctuation and sentence construction
Essential Question: What atmosphere is created through Gilman's use of punctuation and sentence structure?
Examine the first journal entry and the last journal entry. What changes do you notice in the use of punctuation and sentence structures? What is Gilman trying to illustrate through these structural features?
Examine the first journal entry and the last journal entry. What changes do you notice in the use of punctuation and sentence structures? What is Gilman trying to illustrate through these structural features?
Punctuation
What atmosphere is created through the use of punctuation in both sections? |
Sentence Structure
What atmosphere is created through the variation in sentences in both sections? |
What is Gilman trying to illustrate through these structural features?
Analysis Activity
Monday, 22 September
Monday, 22 September
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Essay Prompts. Choose ONE
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Analysis Due: Thursday, 25 September