Response to images from reading for 12 July 2006
I think I'm going to start with the images and see where we go from there.
"The Yellow Wall-Paper": One of the images that strikes me in this story is the woman's thoughts and feelings as ridiculous or laughable. Her husband laughs at her and there's a twisted humor throughout the story and I think it struck me because I know how ridiculous my own thoughts and actions and feelings can be sometimes. I guess I rarely contemplate the damaging effects of always laughing at problems, though. I still believe that women are taken less seriously than men in a lot of cases, but I also have come to realize that I can't always take myself seriously. This isn't making sense anymore. In any case, the woman in the story obviously had problems, but they also obviously weren't as bad until they were ignored. Another image that I think is kind of connected to women being portrayed as ridiculous is women being weak. This character is weak physically and mentally, but it's because she's trapped in a room and treated like a child by her husband. At the same time, it kind of seems like she traps herself because she buys into with what her husband tells her. Like the first time she says he laughs at her and she says that it's expected in marriage. She makes statements like, "What is one to do?" and she puts her writing away because she knows that her husband doesn't like it and she believes whatever he tells her about her condition and about the house or their moving or staying put and doesn't even seem to question whether or not he might be right. In the end, she isn't trapped by her husband anymore, but it doesn't matter because she can't make her own intelligent decisions anyway. It kind of made me think of part of Captivating when Stasi Eldredge talks about how women have a tendency to keep things inside because the men in their lives make them think that they are "too much" to handle. Eventually, though, keeping feelings or thoughts or people locked up doesn't seem to do much good, according to Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
""Ain't I a Woman?": This one conjured up almost a Rosa Parks-like picture for me. I see a woman who is proud of her abilities, but also who is proud of being a woman and who demands the same treatment as other women. I know the black community criticized Truth for advocating women's rights at the expense of African American rights, but, since she was speaking at a Women's Rights Convention, it was only natural to do so. I see Truth as a woman fighting for the rights of any group that is oppressed, but not necessarily a woman who wants equality with men. I think it slightly resembles Gilman's point when the husband in "The Yellow Wall-Paper" refuses to acknowledge his wife as a capable human being. Truth and Gilman both recognize that part of their humanity is lost when women are ignored, repressed, or even laughed at.
"Lady Lazarus": The last two stanzas were packed the most impact for me. Lazarus was raised from the dead by God. At the end of the poem, I picture the speaker (although you can never declare without a doubt, the poem is blatantly autobiographical) as perceiving herself as having assumed more power than God and she warns both God and the devil that she will rise up of her own will. I find it interesting that, during the poem, is little more than a body to those who supposedly care about her and rejoice in her failure in attempting suicide. To outsiders, she is a woman and is unworthy of more thought than the Nazis gave the Jews. But in the last lines, she overcomes her position and, perhaps because of her position, devours the men who put her there. Sadly enough, this reminds me of "The Yellow Wall-Paper" because both women end up being the opposite of what the men in their lives are trying to make them. Plath commits suicide shortly after her poem is published, if I remember correctly, and the speaker in the poem ends up devouring the men who want to believe she is good for little more than making lampshades and soap out of. The woman in Gilman's story ends up being crazy, while the husband believes that he is fixing her. Funny.
"When I Was Growing Up": My favorite image in this poem is when the speaker describes her belief that she was "an exotic gardenia" when she was out with a white man. The whole stanza is beautiful and terrible at the same time. What she thinks she desires is to be white, but when she is out with a white man, it is her race that makes her feel special. It's just sick that it took a white man to make her feel like a real woman, because she follows the stanza up immediately with a description of her disgust with Chinese men. Her desire to fit the stereotype is such a recurrent theme in women's literature; a lot of times, it's even a theme when the characters seem to be proud of their not fitting a stereotype. The short story that I read, "Big Thing" was all about a girl who put on a front by acting proud of not being on a diet when she secretly despised herself for not fitting the stereotype. This girl seems to be proud of being Chinese when she says she feels like an exotic flower, but she obviously wants to fit the stereotype since the poem is about how she "longed to be white."
"The Thirty Eighth Year": The same kind of thing comes up for me with this poem. When the speaker says that she "expected to be/smaller than this... I had expected/more than this," I think of why "smaller" would be "more," and stereotypes about how women should be came up again. The problem is that her repetition of "ordinary" and the poem's focus on how plain of a woman she is attests to the fact that the majority of women aren't necessarily extraordinary by societal, stereotypical standards. It replays the theme in the last poem and in "Big Thing" by illustrating the desire that women have to fit stereotypes, but the unreality of doing so.
"The Yellow Wall-Paper": One of the images that strikes me in this story is the woman's thoughts and feelings as ridiculous or laughable. Her husband laughs at her and there's a twisted humor throughout the story and I think it struck me because I know how ridiculous my own thoughts and actions and feelings can be sometimes. I guess I rarely contemplate the damaging effects of always laughing at problems, though. I still believe that women are taken less seriously than men in a lot of cases, but I also have come to realize that I can't always take myself seriously. This isn't making sense anymore. In any case, the woman in the story obviously had problems, but they also obviously weren't as bad until they were ignored. Another image that I think is kind of connected to women being portrayed as ridiculous is women being weak. This character is weak physically and mentally, but it's because she's trapped in a room and treated like a child by her husband. At the same time, it kind of seems like she traps herself because she buys into with what her husband tells her. Like the first time she says he laughs at her and she says that it's expected in marriage. She makes statements like, "What is one to do?" and she puts her writing away because she knows that her husband doesn't like it and she believes whatever he tells her about her condition and about the house or their moving or staying put and doesn't even seem to question whether or not he might be right. In the end, she isn't trapped by her husband anymore, but it doesn't matter because she can't make her own intelligent decisions anyway. It kind of made me think of part of Captivating when Stasi Eldredge talks about how women have a tendency to keep things inside because the men in their lives make them think that they are "too much" to handle. Eventually, though, keeping feelings or thoughts or people locked up doesn't seem to do much good, according to Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
""Ain't I a Woman?": This one conjured up almost a Rosa Parks-like picture for me. I see a woman who is proud of her abilities, but also who is proud of being a woman and who demands the same treatment as other women. I know the black community criticized Truth for advocating women's rights at the expense of African American rights, but, since she was speaking at a Women's Rights Convention, it was only natural to do so. I see Truth as a woman fighting for the rights of any group that is oppressed, but not necessarily a woman who wants equality with men. I think it slightly resembles Gilman's point when the husband in "The Yellow Wall-Paper" refuses to acknowledge his wife as a capable human being. Truth and Gilman both recognize that part of their humanity is lost when women are ignored, repressed, or even laughed at.
"Lady Lazarus": The last two stanzas were packed the most impact for me. Lazarus was raised from the dead by God. At the end of the poem, I picture the speaker (although you can never declare without a doubt, the poem is blatantly autobiographical) as perceiving herself as having assumed more power than God and she warns both God and the devil that she will rise up of her own will. I find it interesting that, during the poem, is little more than a body to those who supposedly care about her and rejoice in her failure in attempting suicide. To outsiders, she is a woman and is unworthy of more thought than the Nazis gave the Jews. But in the last lines, she overcomes her position and, perhaps because of her position, devours the men who put her there. Sadly enough, this reminds me of "The Yellow Wall-Paper" because both women end up being the opposite of what the men in their lives are trying to make them. Plath commits suicide shortly after her poem is published, if I remember correctly, and the speaker in the poem ends up devouring the men who want to believe she is good for little more than making lampshades and soap out of. The woman in Gilman's story ends up being crazy, while the husband believes that he is fixing her. Funny.
"When I Was Growing Up": My favorite image in this poem is when the speaker describes her belief that she was "an exotic gardenia" when she was out with a white man. The whole stanza is beautiful and terrible at the same time. What she thinks she desires is to be white, but when she is out with a white man, it is her race that makes her feel special. It's just sick that it took a white man to make her feel like a real woman, because she follows the stanza up immediately with a description of her disgust with Chinese men. Her desire to fit the stereotype is such a recurrent theme in women's literature; a lot of times, it's even a theme when the characters seem to be proud of their not fitting a stereotype. The short story that I read, "Big Thing" was all about a girl who put on a front by acting proud of not being on a diet when she secretly despised herself for not fitting the stereotype. This girl seems to be proud of being Chinese when she says she feels like an exotic flower, but she obviously wants to fit the stereotype since the poem is about how she "longed to be white."
"The Thirty Eighth Year": The same kind of thing comes up for me with this poem. When the speaker says that she "expected to be/smaller than this... I had expected/more than this," I think of why "smaller" would be "more," and stereotypes about how women should be came up again. The problem is that her repetition of "ordinary" and the poem's focus on how plain of a woman she is attests to the fact that the majority of women aren't necessarily extraordinary by societal, stereotypical standards. It replays the theme in the last poem and in "Big Thing" by illustrating the desire that women have to fit stereotypes, but the unreality of doing so.
posted by Tracee at 5:17 PM
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