Fluent Essays

Drawing on your growing understanding of the gothic genre, which two stories of the four that we read this week (“The Yellow Wallpaper, Luella Miller, Afterward, or “A Jury of Her Peers) best exemplifies the female gothic? Why? Further, besides qualifying as prime examples of the female gothic, what other elements of the gothic do these stories contain (hint: consider what youve learned from The Female Gothic: Then and Now as you formulate your response)? Be sure to refer to the assigned terms in A Glossary of Literary Gothic Terms and in last week’s presentation where appropriate, and be sure to offer quotations from the stories as evidence. To learn how to smoothly integrate quotations into your writing, click here (Links to an external site.). Your post should be 2 pages in length.Structure:Your primary post should include an introduction that introduces the topic and ends with a clearly worded, 1-2 sentence thesis statement. Each supporting paragraph (there should be at least 3) should begin with a strong topic sentence and should incorporate evidence, including direct quotations from the short stories as needed to support your argument. Direct quotations should be incorporated using the quotation sandwich method and proper MLA in-text citations. The post should also contain a strong conclusion. Offer thoughtful feedback on 2 of your classmates’ posts. the_yellow_wallpaper_by_charlotte_perkins_gilman_1.pdf luella_miller_mary_wilkins_freeman.pdf afterward___edith_wharton.pdf a_jury_of_her_peers_by_susan_glaspell.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview I am sitting by the Window in th is Atrocious Nursery. THE YELLO\N \\TALL-PAPER. By Cltarlotte Perkins Stetson. T is very seldom that mere ordi­ nary Pople like John and myself secure ancestral hall s for the summer. A colonial man­ sion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity- but that would be asking too much of fate! Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it. Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted? John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures. John is a physician, and perltaps - (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind - ) per/zaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick! . And what can one do? THE YELLOW WALL-PARER. If a physician of high standing, and ones own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency - what is one to do? My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing. • So I take phosphates or phosphites­ whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to work until I am well again. Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do? I did write for a while 111 spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal-having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition. I sometimes fancy that in my condi­ tion if I had less opposition and more . society and stimulus - but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. So I will let it alone and talk about the house. The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people. There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden -large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them. There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now. There was some legal trouble, I be­ lieve, something about the heirs and co­ heirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years. That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I dont care - there is something strange about the house - I can feel it. I even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was a drauglzt, and shut the window. I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. Im sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition. But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself-before him, at least, and that makes me very tired. I dont like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hang­ ings! but John would not hear of it. He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another. He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direc­ tion. I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it ·more. He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. Your ex­ erc ise depends on your strength, my dear, said he, and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can ab­ sorb all the time. So we took the nur­ sery at the top of the house. It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the win­ dows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls. The paint and paper look as if a boys school had used it. It is stripped off­ the paper - in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to con­ stantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide - plunge off at outrage­ ous angles, destroy themselves in un­ heard of contradictions. THE YELLOW The color is repellant, almost revolt­ ing ; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sun­ light. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others. No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long. There comes John, and I must put this away, - he hates to have me write a word. • • • • * • We have been here two·weeks, and I havent felt like writing before, since that first day. I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is noth­ ing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength. John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. I am glad my case is not serious! But these nervous troubles are dread­ fully depressing. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him. Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way! I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already! Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able, - to dress and entertain, and order things. It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous. I suppose John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about this wall-paper! At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies. He said that after the wall-paper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on. You know the place is doing you ·WAL~PAPER. 649 good, he said, and really, dear, I dont care to renovate the house just for a three months rental. Then do let us go downstairs, I said, there are such pretty rooms there. Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain. But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things. It is an airy and comfortable room as anyone need wish, and, of course, I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfort­ able just for a whim. Im really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper. Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deep-shaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees. Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf be­ longing to the estate. There is a beauti­ ful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, a nervous weak­ ness like mine is sure to lead to all man­ ner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try. I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write_ a little it would re­ lieve the press of ideas and rest me. But I find I get pretty tired when I try. It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well, John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now. I wish I could get well faster. But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had! There is a recurrent spot where the. pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down. I get positively angry with the imperti­ j 650 THE YELLOW WALL-PAPER. nence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are every­ where. There is one place where two breaths didnt match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other. I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most chil­ dren could find in a toy-store. I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big, old bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend. I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe. The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however, for we had to bring it all from downstairs. I sup­ pose when this was used as a playroom they had to take the nursery things out, and no wonder! I never saw such raV .lges as the children have made here. The wall-paper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it sticketh closer than a brother - they must have had persever­ ance as well as hatred. Then the floor is scratched and gou~ed and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars. H But I dont mind it a bit only the paper. There comes Johns sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful of me ! I must not let her find me writing. She is a perfect and enthusiastic house­ keeper, and hopes for no better profes­ sion. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick! But I can write when she is out, and see her a long way off from these windows. There is one that commands the road, a lovely shaded winding road, and one that just looks off over the country. A lovely country, too, full of great elms and velvet meadows. This wallpaper has a kind of su b­ pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see It In certain lights, and not clearly then. But in the places where it isnt faded and where the sun is just so - I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design. Theres sister on the stairs! * * * * * * Well, the Fourth of July is over! The people are all gone and I am tired out. John thought it might do me good to see a little company, so we just had mother and Nellie and the children down for a week. Of course I didnt do a thing. Jennie sees to everything now. But it tired me all the same. John says if I dont pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall. But I dont want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so ! Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far. I dont feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over for anything, and Im getting dreadfully fretful and querulous. I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time. Of course I dont when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone. And I am alone a good deal just now. John is kept in town very often by serious cases, and Jennie is good and lets me alone when I want her to. So I walk a little in the garden or down that lovely lane, sit on the porch under the roses, and lie down up here a good deal. Im getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper. It dwells in my mind so ! I lie here on this great immovable bed - it is nailed down, I believe - and fol­ low that pattern about by the hour. It it as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, well say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has nos been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a con­ clusion. THE YELLOW WALL-PAPER. 651 I know a little of the principle of absurd. But I must say what I feel design, and I know this thing was not and think in some way - it is such aarranged on any laws of radiation, or relief ! alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or But the effort is getting to be greater anything else that I ever heard of. than the relief. It is repeated, of course, by the Half the time now I am awfully lazy,. breadths, but not otherwise. and lie down ever so much. John says I mustnt lose my strength,. Looked at in one way each breadth stands alone, the bloated curves and and has me take cod liver oil and lots of flourishes - a kind of debased Romanesque with delirium tremens - go waddling up and down in isolated columns of fatuity. But, on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase. The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction. They have used a horizontal breadth for a frieze, and that adds wonderfully to the confusion. There is one end of the room where Sh e didnt know I was in the Room. it is almost intact, and there, when the crosslights fade and the low sun shines tonics and things, to say nothing of aledirectly upon it, I can almost fancy radia- and wine and rare meat. Dear John! He loves me very dearlYr tion after all, - the interminable grotesque seem to form around a common and hates to have me sick. I tried to centre and rush off in headlong plunges have a real earnest reasonable talk with. him the other day, and tell him how I of equal distraction. It makes me tired to follow it. I will wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia. take a nap I guess. But he said I wasnt able to go, nor * * * * * * able to stand it after I got there j and I I dont know why I should write this. did not make out a very good case for I dont want to. myself, for I was crying before I had finI dont feel able. And I know John would think it ished. o II Il THE YELLOW WALL-PAPER. ·652 It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weak­ ness I suppose. And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head. He said I was his darling and his COl).1­ fort and all he had, and that I must take .care of myself for his sake, and keep well. He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me. Theres one comfort, the baby is well .and happy, and does not have to occupy this nursery with the horrid wallpaper. If we had not used it, that blessed child would have! What a fortunate es­ cape! Why, I wouldnt have a child of mine, an impressionable little thing, live in such a room for worlds. I never thought of it before, but it is lucky that John kept me here after all, I .can stand it so much easier than a baby, you see. Of course I never mention it to them .any more - I am too wise, - but I keep watch of it all the same. There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very num::!rous. And it is like a woman stooping down .and creeping about behind that pattern. I dont like it a bit. I wonder - I be­ -gin to think - I wish John would take ,me away from here! * * * * * * It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and be­ .cause he loves me so. But I tried it last night. It was moonlight. The moon shines in all around just as the sun does. I hate to see it sometimes, it creeps so slowly, and always comes in by one win­ ,dow or another. John was asleep and I hated to waken nim, so I kept still and watched the moonlight on that undulating wallpaper till I felt creepy. The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out. I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move, and when I came back John was awake. What is it, little girl? he said. Dont go walking about like that­ youll get cold. I thought it was a good time to talk, so I told him that I really was not gain­ ing here, and that I wished he would take me away. Why, darling! said he, our lease will be up in three weeks, and I cant see how to leave before. The repairs are not done at home, and I cannot possibly leave town just now. Of course if you were in any danger, I could and would, but you really are bet­ ·ter, dear, whether you can 6ee it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better, I feel really much easier about you. I dont weigh a bit more, said I, nor as much; and my appetite may be better in the evening when you are here, but it is worse in the morning when you are awav! Ble~s her little heart! s:1id he with a big hug, she sha ll be as sick as she pleases! But now lets improve the shin­ ing hours by going to sleep, and talk about it in the morning! And you wont go away? I asked gloomily. Why, how can I, dear? It is only three weeks more and then we will take a nice little trip of a few days while Jennie is getting the house ready. Really dear you are better! Better in body perhaps - I began, and stopped short, for he sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern, re­ proachful look that I could not say another word. My darling, said he, I beg of you, for my sake and for our childs sake, as well as for your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so? THE YELLOW WALL-PAPER. 653­ Indeed he started the habit by making­ me lie down for an hour after each meal. It is a very bad habit I am convinced,. for you see I dont sleep. And that cultivates deceit, for I dont tell them Im awake - 0 no ! The fact is I am getting a little afraid * * * * * * of John. He seems very queer sometimes, and On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of even Jennie has an inexplicable look. It strikes me occasionally, just as a law, that is a constant irritant to a nor­ scientific hypothesis,- that perhaps it is· mal mind. The color is hideous enough, and un­ the paper! I have watched John when he did not reliable enough, and infuriating enough, know I was looking, and come into the but the pattern is torturing. You think you have mastered it, but room suddenly on the most innocent ex­ just as you get well underway in following, cuses, and Ive caught him several times. it turns a back-somersault and there you looking at the paper! And Jennie too. I are. It slaps you in the face, knocks caught Jennie with her hand on it ... Purchase answer to see full attachment