I am thoroughly confused by Charlotte Perkins Stetson’s short story, of course, I understood what was going on in terms of Charlottes bed rest, but I did not understand what was going on with the paper. Was she going delusional because she was being forced to stay in bed or was there mold in the walls? I’m glad that Dr. Bezio told us that this short story affected at least one women’s life as an individual and that it affected her doctor’s prescription of such tactics. Regardless of understanding the story the first time I read I did find it interesting; I think if I went back and close read it, I would get a lot out of it. Even without a close reading of it, I found her writing to be very eloquent and full of particularly interesting adjectives. I also on a surface level found potential parallels between Charlotte Perkins Stetson growing up without a father and her relationship with her husband John. Many of these moments both reflected the absence of a father in her life as well as how husbands treated their wives as children, and how because she was troubled, she must be treated as a child. All of which deturbed me. I am intrigued by how this story preempts her leaving, of course, the “creeping” is a sign she wishes to do things she is not supposed to do when John cannot see her. But beyond that, the story does not (at least as far as I have read into it) indicate the desire to really leave her husband and even more so does not really show us a great connection between her and her child. But again, I did not close read this story and would surely get much more out of it if I did so. I do want to draw one more parallel to the last class before I wrap up this blog post. This short story shows a great deal of leadership as it had a profound effect on whether or not to use these “rest cures.”
Critical Thinking
I interpreted the wallpaper to symbolize domestic life and the house to symbolize the ways in which the patriarchy oppresses women every day. Granted, I had to read the story a few times before I “got” it, but I don’t think it’s a matter of her not wanting to leave her husband, but not having the option to leave. In a sense the women she saw in the wallpaper may represent all the women that came before her in that house, in a domestic relationship, that felt trapped within the confines of marriage. Throughout the story, the main character is constantly wanting to do the opposite of what her husband tells her to do, and yet she must do it or else she risks being sent away to an even worse situation.
I was also confused by the story at first. I have read it before, so I think reading it a second time helped me understand it a bit better. I interpreted her story to tell us that no one with a mental illness can get better if they are in confinement.
I was also confused the first time I read it, but I partly feel like that is the point. Not necessarily to confuse the audience, but to have them use their imagination and find their own interpretation of what the wallpaper represents. Personally, I feel like the wallpaper could represent her being trapped in her marriage and trapped in the room, since it is physically surrounding her. I also found it interesting that you connected the absence of her father to the struggles in her marriage, and I definitely think there could be a parallel there.
I also was confused with the Yellow Wallpaper. The one thing I was certain of was that the main character was crazy and continued to grow crazier as a result of being stuck in the room with the weird wall paper. Not until the entire thing was explained in class by Dr. Bezio was I able to understand most of the intricacies. When I go back and read the short story again at some point, I will go in with the knowledge that most everything that the main character witnesses is actually as a result of her own actions, i.e. her reflection in the windows or her ripping off pieces of the wallpaper. The story really put into context how bad rest-cures were for mental health patients.