Entry #2 "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” at first look is a disturbing piece were you see a women being isolated from the world, by her husband and a crazy doctor who knows nothing about women, go insane. At second look you really get down to the bottom of what the piece represents and what the author was trying achieve with the women. I feel the woman in the story was acting in a crazy manner so show how isolation and rest don’t fix the problem of being a woman. Men in this time didn’t take the time to look into what makes a woman tick and how her feelings come through. The doctor really didn’t care what she was going through and just prescribed her rest.

            The rest and isolation caused her to examine the wall-paper in the room but what she was really looking at was herself. The woman in the wallpaper escapes and creeps around the grounds and that’s what the woman feels she is having to do. You can tell through her writings that she has to hide that the more isolation she gets and the more rest she gets that she is getting tired and irritated. The colors of the wall-paper with its crazy pattern that she analyzes on a daily basis I think shows her plan being hatched to show that none of the treatment she is receiving is doing any good because she is not ill. All the woman wants to do is her writings and enjoy her life.

            The fact that John the husband faints at the sight of his unkempt wife is hilarious and rather interesting. At this time the woman is always seen with her nails down and hair up and a pretty dress on. Now a day husband and wife share a bed and see each other in a less than flattering light every morning. I understand why she wanted to break out of the mold and do her own thing. She was tired of getting all dressed up and doing housework before it was taken over during her illness and it really shined through. I feel bad for her and the woman at this time because they really couldn’t shine when married and some not even after the husband died.

            “The Yellow Wallpaper could be perceived as being a gothic piece but I don’t really think it is. It is set in a summer home away from everything she knows and far from neighbors. This can give a castle like feels to the piece and the fact that she is kept under lock and key in a room on the second floor. The fear element is most certainly there in that room and is created over time. She fears that she may never get “better” and she feels the fear of the women in the wallpaper. That fear that she is going crazy and then the fear of the husband that she really has gone crazy when he sees her unkempt really shows how the fear is created.

            The narrator was fighting against the medical treatment of women during this time not only by her husband the physician but by the other doctor involved in the piece. The rest cure is not the answer to cure her of not wanting a domestic life. She is also fighting against the domestic life of woman versus the working life of men and how she really wants to write. There is also a fight against depression. It was dragging her down and though her journal and deep inner examination she crawls her way back out of the hole she feels she is being buried.

            This piece is a really representation of time period and the misdiagnosis of women due to the lack of study of the female body. To call “The Yellow Wallpaper” gothic story would a grave error as it is much deeper than that. This piece is a journal of a study of the effects of isolation and poor understanding of the female body. The journal is a great collection of the progression of depression with isolation from your loved ones. The narrator is just crying out for help and showing other women what can happen and telling women to do something it this is happening to them.

Entry #1 "The War Prayer"

In “The War Prayer” I feel sorry for the mothers and wives of the men sent off to war but the things they are acting for far more complicated then they think. War is not a place anyone wants to be in and everyone wants to be home and the people at home want everyone home safe. The problem I am having with this piece is that two questions are really being asked of God. This is why I feel that the loved ones of these brave men are being selfish and unknowingly murderers. Two questions in one is a hard thing to grasp if you don’t look at it from a universal stand point. One son but die for another to come home. One country must lose for one country to win.

The stranger that comes to the church to speak that he is sent there from God to show and speak to His graces servants is not believed and is disregarded as a lunatic. I would think that if God sent someone to speak to me and I didn’t listen and pay attention to what he had to say, God would never listen to the things I said to him or the thinks I kindly asked from him. Sin is something totally different from ignorance. These people are ignorant in the fact that God never really sends someone to their aid and to explain to them how they are making a grave mistake in their loaded prayer.

The prayer itself is really understandable but the meaning behind it is too much for my heart to bear. I can’t ask for the death of another in order to get my love ones back. I would rather sit and wait to see how thing play out and see who is meant to win out before even thinking of such a grave event being perpetrated at my hands. My main issue is that they young men haven’t even left yet. It said that the battalions would leave for the front the next day. I am mostly against what the people of this town are asking for but I do feel their fear and pain. The great sacrifice that the young boys are giving is a grand one and appreciated when it is necessary.

Entry #1 "As Regards to Patriotism"

In “In Regards Patriotism” patriotism is said to be training and manipulation by the majority to go to battle in major wars, change the state of things in the country, and convince men that what they thought was wrong and to change it even if six months ago they said the opposite. Patriotism to me is learned and not trained. Training implies that I had never had a choice and I guess at the time no one really had a choice because if you went against the grain you were considered a traitor and everyone soon found out and began beating you up and treating you as dirt. The newspaper was instrumental in this time period because it told people what to believe and the majority was always right as in the government.

            There are people in America who have reasons for being patriots and reasons for not. In this piece the author implies you couldn’t find three people who had their own reasons much less one person with one reason. Free will was limited and you never got to express the thoughts that you had if you even had them. I couldn’t take it if I couldn’t express my thoughts and reasons for making the decisions that I choose. Free speech was declared a right of all citizens and exercised very freely right now. Protest about big government, wars and battles in countries I feel we have no business in, and political powers that certain people hold.

            The media is still a huge influence on how people feel and think. The TV more over the newspaper of this time has really picked and chose the key parts of certain things to show. They exemplify the deaths in certain battles or the destruction being created as the USA enters into countries and territories to look for people of importance to the government.  The media chooses to show the worst parts of everything and gets you angry about the way the government is handling everything. No about of training can really get rid of how you feel and think but if it is taken to an extreme like brainwashing anything can be believed and anyone can be trusted.