Nancy
Avilez
English
104, Dr. Agatucci
Midterm
Discussion Paper--Topic #11
October
10, 2001
[Kate
Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and
Bobby Ann Mason’s “Shiloh”]
In the United States today, we live in a culture in which it
sometimes seems there is no subject so taboo that it is not openly
discussed. But for those who
are not so ready to tell all, short stories are one way of exploring
whether others share some of our deepest and closest experiences and
emotions. For this
reason, the short story as a means of sharing an experience or
emotion--particularly one that society tells us it is not correct to
feel--is one function the genre serves today.
This is what I found while considering two stories written nearly a
century apart: Kate
Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Bobby Ann Mason’s
“Shiloh”.
“The Story of an Hour”, published in 1894, must have been
shocking in its time. Its central character, Mrs. Mallard, learns of her
husband’s death in a railway accident.
In the hour that follows, she has an epiphany as she realizes that
her overriding emotion is profound joy at the thought of freedom from her
marriage. Her new view of
life is short-lived, however. Descending the stairs, she catches sight of her very live
husband coming in through the front door, and in her shock has a fatal
heart attack. The heart
trouble, of course, is a legitimate contrivance on the author’s part to
provide irony and keep the story short.
The truly interesting aspect of this story is Louise Mallard’s
revelation and her reaction to it.
In the late 19th
century it was not acceptable for women to admit to feeling trapped,
stifled, bored, or discontented with married life.
After all, by marrying they had done exactly what society expected
them to do. To publicly admit
to their disappointment would be unusual; to blame their dissatisfaction
on prevailing social conventions (particularly the institution of
marriage) would be unthinkable. In
fact, Louise Mallard has a brief internal struggle when she realizes that
her initial reaction to her husband’s death is joy rather than grief:
“She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching
to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will”
(177). This quickly
gives way to elation at the thought of a husband-less future:
“But she saw...a long procession of years to come that would
belong to her absolutely. And
she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.” (178) .
This story--evidence of these radical thoughts put into a written
record--must have seemed subversive to many of Kate Chopin’s
contemporaries. But what a relief it must have been to women of that time
who recognized themselves in Louise Mallard.
For them, this story would have been an assurance that somewhere
out there another woman was unhappy in her marriage and that they were not
the only on feeling that way. By
reading it, they could identify with Mrs. Mallard’s brief experience of
freedom without ever having to tell another soul.
“The Story of an Hour” offered reassurance to sympathetic
readers by telling them that they were not alone, that their unhappiness
in marriage was an experience they had in common with other women, even if
the social norms of the time prevented them from openly talking about it.
We now live in a culture in which divorce, separation, and affairs
are common, easily attained, and, in many segments of our society, openly
discussed. Can a contemporary
story about the ending of a marriage serve the same function?
Reading Bobby Ann Mason’s “Shiloh”, I wondered if a
blue-collar couple living in the Bible belt in 1982 is very far removed
from the middle-class Mallards of 1894.
Norma Jean Moffitt,
the wife in Bobby Ann Mason’s “Shiloh”, is in some ways a 1980s
version of Louise Mallard. Interestingly,
her situation is almost the reverse of Mrs. Mallard’s.
Norma Jean is married to a truck driver who is suddenly, constantly
present after many years of being on the road.
Norma Jean finds her life and marriage bearable while her husband
Leroy is traveling. But when
he comes home to stay, the everyday reality of the marriage seems to be
more than she can handle: “Norma
Jean is often startled to find Leroy at home, and he thinks she seems a
little disappointed about it.” (524).
While picnicking at the historic battleground at Shiloh, she
quietly tells her husband that she is leaving him.
The final image of the couple is of Norma Jean, standing at the
edge of a bluff overlooking the Tennessee River opening her arms to the
world and to her future, while Leroy, hobbled by the injury that forced
him to leave truck driving, is left to stumble along as best he can to try
to catch up.
While we know little about Louise Mallard’s circumstances or
marriage (the setting and minor characters imply a respectable,
conventional, middle-class couple with supportive family and friends), we
do learn a lot about her thoughts during her brief period of freedom. In
this respect, “Shiloh” is again a sort of reverse of “The Story of
an Hour”. It is told from
the husband’s point of view. And although we know little of Norma Jean’s inner workings,
we do get plenty of background information about her marriage and
circumstances. From Leroy’s
thoughts and observations we know that the Moffitts are so distanced from
one another that they have to grasp at straws to even appear
to have something in common. When
his wife talks about skin care products, Leroy “thinks happily of other
petroleum products--axle grease, diesel fuel.
This is a connection between him and Norma Jean.” (523). The fact
that they have never been able to discuss the long ago death of their son
is an example of a phenomenal lack of communication that seems to have
sent them into a pattern of marking time:
“Leroy wonders if one of them should mention the child.
He has the feeling that they are waking up out of a dream
together--that they must create a new marriage, start afresh.” (524).
Unlike Louise Mallard, Norma Jean Moffit recognizes that the end of
her marriage is near. She
knows it because she is going to
initiate it. She is in
training, both physically and mentally, for the event of leaving her
husband: “Norma Jean is going to night school. She has graduated from her six-week bodybuilding course and
now she is taking an adult-education course...” (529). But like Mrs. Mallard, Norma Jean seems out of step with
prevailing social attitudes. She
could have left the marriage at any time during the decade and half that
her husband was driving truck, but she didn’t.
She could end it now gleefully and spitefully, intentionally
hurting Leroy as much as possible, but she doesn’t.
She quietly just walks away.
“Shiloh”
does not shock its audience in the way that “The Story of an Hour”
did. The audience has become too worldly to be surprised by a story about
marital discord. It does,
however, serve at least one identical cultural function.
It provides a sense of sharing and relief to a reader who
identifies with Norma Jean. It
offers proof that a sympathetic reader is not alone in her feelings, that
there is someone else out there who is in a shaky marriage but is unable
or unwilling to seize on the easy out our society offers.
“The Story of an Hour” and “Shiloh” have a similar
theme presented in different ways. It
is easy to imagine that if Leroy Moffitt had been reported dead in a
highway accident during the years he drove truck, Norma Jean’s response
would have been very like Louise Mallard’s reaction to the news of her husband’s death. Chopin’s
tale should seem outdated, but is surprisingly relevant when compared to
Mason’s. Although social
mores changed radically during the time between, each fills a need of its
audience by offering an experience people might have in common with the
characters and with each other, even if they aren’t comfortable talking
about it.
Gail
Merydith
Eng 104, Dr. Agatucci
Midterm Discussion
Paper – Topic 5
10 October 2001
The
Characters of “The Yellow Wallpaper”
The main character in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” told in first person
narration, is never given a name, which I feel gives the reader a sense of the
character’s feeling of abandonment and aloneness in her quest for sanity.
I believe this is a powerful point Charlotte Perkins Gilman makes in
developing the main character. Although
we know that the story is based on Gilman’s personal struggles with mental
illness, the story is fiction, and nowhere in the story do we find her name
(“Why I Wrote ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’” Eng 104 Course Pack 24).
Her husband, John, refers to her as “darling”, “dear” and “little
girl” (325). We are given
further indication that she has no one to really talk to openly, a confidant,
when she tells the reader, “(I would not say to a living soul, of course,
but this is dead paper…)” (319). Her
communication and attempt to understand her illness is with herself through
her writing, which her husband forbids her to do.
Again and again, we find our heroine unable to be herself, to not
really be known by anyone, especially not by her husband.
She talks of becoming “unreasonably angry with John,” but then
passes it off as being “due to this nervous condition.” (320).
John tells her she needs to control herself, so she “take[s] pains to
control myself – before him, at least, and that makes me very tired.”
(320). Not only is John her
husband, but her physician, and he tells her she
is not to write and cautioned her to not “give way to fancy…that with my
imaginative power and habit of story-making, a nervous weakness like mine is
sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies…” (321).
She then goes on to state, “It is so discouraging not to have any
advice and companionship about my work.” (321).
As the reader, I can feel how alone she must feel – no one
with which to share any part of her genuine thoughts, feelings, beliefs – no
part of her to be shared with anyone.
Gilman’s brief use of dialogue between the protagonist and John
contribute to the feeling of despair and abandonment felt by our heroine.
In the self-dialogue Gilman shows the reader the incredible intuition
and wisdom of this insane person. She
seems to know what she needs to get well, but unfortunately, she is denied the
opportunity to act upon her intuitions. She
states that her prescription is for “…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.” (319). After she has been confined to the summer residence, in the
room with the yellow wallpaper, we get another glimpse of her trying to help
herself, “I don’t know why I should write this. I don’t want to. I
don’t feel able. And I know
John would think it absurd. But I
must say what I feel and think in some way – it is such a relief!” (324). I feel
these two passages show the reader that she clearly knows what she needs, what
would help her to recover.
We feel her falling deeper into despair, into insanity as she obsesses
over the wallpaper. She tries again to take care of herself, her needs, by having
a conversation with John. She
tries to tell him that she isn’t getting better, that she would like to go
away. John tells her that she is
better, “I am a doctor, dear, and I know.”
She further tries to explain in terms he’ll understand, that her
weight is
less
than it was and her appetite is worse (325).
This, of course, makes no
difference
to John, who dismisses her with a hug and states that they would talk about it
in the morning. When she
persists, he admonishes her, “I beg you, for my sake and for our child’s
sake…Can you trust me as a physician when I tell you so?”
(325). Gilman then draws
us further into her insanity where she is “trying to decide whether that
front pattern and the back pattern [of the wallpaper] really did move together
or separately.” (325). The
reader feels her paranoia as she talks of not trusting John or Jennie, or even
the reader, “It does not do to trust people too much.” (328)
John is a controlling husband, making all of the decisions for his wife
and relieving her of the care of their child and house, which he has turned
over to his sister, Jennie. John
further controls his wife by taking her to a house for the summer, a house
located far from their community, family and friends.
He insists that his wife occupy the room on the third floor, a room
where the windows are barred and there are “rings and things in the walls”
and wallpaper with a “sprawling flamboyant pattern…pronounced enough to
constantly irritate and provoke study…when you follow the lame uncertain
curves for a little
distance
they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy
themselves in unheard of contradictions.” (320). John tells his wife he will change the wallpaper, but
changes his mind, telling his wife that she “was letting it get the better
of [her]” (321).
Gilman’s heroine states that, “I have a prescription for each hour
in the day; he [John] takes all care from me”, further evidence that John is
attempting to
control
every hour of his wife’s day. When
she makes requests of John on her behalf, he dismisses her, treats her as a
child, resorts to guilt, “I beg of you, for my sake and for our child’s
sake” and refers to his entitlement as a physician to convince her that all
his decisions are in her best interest (325).
John is a very static character throughout the story, until the end,
when he faints. Gilman points out the very static nature of John by the use
of our heroine’s question, “Now why should that man have fainted?”
After all, his wife had been telling him for months what she needed to
get well, but he knew best!
Our heroine on the other hand, is a very dynamic character.
She is the ill wife, who wants to get better, and tries to do so in
spite of the help of her physician husband.
Time and again we see her acquiesce to her husband’s demands only to
find her reaching deep inside herself for the strength to ask for his help
again. She finds time to write
knowing that writing is helpful to her, even though John has forbidden it. We see her depressed, but reasonable in the beginning, only
to watch her slide into serious, pathological, mental illness.
She is indeed a very dynamic character!
© Gail Merydith, 2001
Kenny Wolford
English 104, Dr. Agatucci
Midterm Discussion Paper – Topic #13
10th October, 2001
Dmitry
Gurov’s Journal Entry, 1904
I am a dying man! I am
only 44 years old, but frail and full of regret.
This journal entry is a confession to God of my true soul. It is a glimpse into a series of events that touched my heart
and made me realize what it is to be true to my emotions. I could never be with the
only woman that I have allowed myself to love.
I have existed inside this
body’s hard exterior shell. My
passion and emotion chiseling away from the inside without ever truly reaching
the surface.
My regrets can be traced to a time when I was a second year student and
married an “erect woman with dark eyebrows, stately and dignified and as she
said of herself, intellectual.” (pg. 163, Charters).
We had a daughter and two sons together. I had little respect for my family or my job in the bank.
I spoke ill words about women and referred to them as the “inferior
race.” Looking back, I didn’t
really dislike or disrespect women at all.
Quite the contrary, I enjoyed the company of women more than I did of
men. For this reason, I was
unfaithful to my wife and unfaithful often.
There was so much excitement and satisfaction when meeting a new woman
for the first time. However, when
the desire reached a certain point, I ended them and moved onto the next
conquest time and time again. I
did not ever let the affairs reach a point where I could be the one to be
rejected. It was easiest to view
these women as “inferior” and how they bored me to keep from attaching any
emotional strings.
One Summer evening in Yalta, my perspective on women was changed
forever, although it would take me some time to realize this.
I was dining in a public garden, as I often did when needing female
companionship, when a young woman wearing a beret sat down at the next table
with her Pomeranian dog. I had
become quite an expert on typing a woman’s social class by watching her
face, her walk and her clothing. This
woman obviously was from the upper class.
Drawing upon old tactics, I decided to use the dog as a bridge to make
the acquaintance of the woman
wearing the beret. Her name was
Anna and she was young and beautiful. We
walked and talked and enjoyed the beauty of Yalta together.
Once again, as I examine this time in my life, I realize that something
dramatic had happened. My usual
tactic to relate to women and to get them to want me was to play upon their
senses. The “light on the sea;
the water was a soft, warm, lilac color and there was a golden band of
moonlight upon it.” (pg.167) The
setting was perfect to play upon the senses of Anna.
What I did not realize at the time was that my senses had gotten more
involved than during my usual conquests for physical love.
My emotions had already begun to get involved.
I had even told Anna my dream about becoming an opera singer and how it
had been pushed aside to become a husband and father which is far more than I
had revealed to the other women. I
remember returning to my apartment that night after my stroll with her and
feeling attracted to how young and timid she was…how beautiful. I wanted to
find something wrong with her so that I would not get too attached to this
married woman spending only a month in Yalta.
After about a week of strolling about Yalta and talking with Anna, we
kissed and returned to her room. I
had been in this situation with many women before and they had been grateful
for the happiness that our affair had provided.
I expected the same from Anna. I
expected her to be grateful and happy that we had enjoyed such a physical
encounter. Anna’s reaction
surprised me. She was not happy and felt that she had lost my respect.
I felt so awkward at the moment that she told me so soon after our
physical encounter. I had no idea
how to react. I reached for a
slice of watermelon to fill my mouth so that I would have an excuse not to
respond. Anna told me of her
husband and how she married young and because she was curious, but had very
little respect for him and actually referred to him as a “flunky.”
To my surprise, Anna had come to Yalta to escape her husband and may
have targeted me to gain some experience that was different, more sensual than
with her husband. In a strange
way, the table had been turned upon me! Anna
was regretting her decision, I did not understand where I lost control of the
situation. I could only kiss her at that moment and make her laugh in
order the quell the tense moment. We
sat over the sea and I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the sea and of Anna.
She had penetrated into my hard shell like no other woman had before.
Anna and I continued to eat, walk and admire the sea. She continued to doubt her decision to be unfaithful.
Not so much unfaithful to her husband, but to her morals.
I on the other hand was beginning to feel like I was beginning to be
faithful to my own desires and passions for the first time.
I tried to find something wrong with Anna, make her part of the
“inferior race,” but she was not inferior.
It was time for Anna to return to her small town and her husband and I
accompanied her to the train station. As
her train pulled out of Yalta, I could feel the emotion, the sadness welling
up inside of me. This is the
first woman I had failed to make happy and I feared that I would never see her
again. She had no idea how much
of a womanizer, a scoundrel I had been. I
could no longer stay in Yalta with the memories of Anna and returned to
Moscow.
I remember the feeling of Moscow when I returned. It was a cold routine from so many Winters past.
I immersed myself in what the wealthy do in Moscow and would
“entertain distinguished lawyers and actors and play cards at the
physicians’ club.” (pg.169) It
was about a month after returning that I had the epiphany.
All of the sensual memories of Anna hit me like a ton of bricks and I
began to take her with me throughout my daily life.
It must have been obvious to my wife because she made certain snide
comments when I spoke in general about love and women, but she had no idea
what was brewing inside of me.
At the very climax of my thoughts of Anna, I decided to act and like a
love sick puppy planned a secret
visit to the town where she and her husband lived.
I found their house and paced outside of the long gray fence.
That fence, I realize now, has represented my relationship with not
only Anna, but with every bit of sensuality and emotion living in my heart.
A wall that I pace outside of and flirt with what lies on the other
side. I could not bring myself to
knock on the door and take Anna away. I walked away, afraid of my heart.
I decided to attend a play that night hoping that Anna would also be
attending and sure enough, she was there with her husband Dideritz, the
“flunkey.” I did work up the
courage to find her at the intermission and upon seeing me, she looked like
she would faint. We walked to the
staircase and I felt that this would be the one opportunity in my life to
express my true emotions. Anna
said, “I suffer so, all this time I have been thinking of nothing but you; I
live only by the thought of you. And
I wanted to forget, to forget; but why oh why have you come?” (pg. 172)
I was exploding with my feelings for Anna at that moment and she said
something that would define us at that moment and for eternity, “I will come
and see you in Moscow. I have
never been happy; I am unhappy now, and I never, never shall be happy, never!
So don’t make me suffer still more!
I swear I’ll come to Moscow. But
let us part. My dear, good,
precious one. Let us part!”
(pg. 172) It was then that my
shell hardened once again and I began pacing behind that gray wall around my
heart.
Anna did come to Moscow to visit every two or three months.
We met in a local hotel, made love in front of the fire.
The last encounter we had together was 6 months ago before I was too
sick and weak to leave the house. Before
I was too frail to lie to my wife and kids.
Ironically, it isn’t the deception to my family and friends that I
regret. It is a lifetime of living a lie to myself.
When Anna came to Moscow for our weekend affairs, I was still pacing
outside of that gray wall surrounding my heart.
Knowing every minute that our time together was temporary.
Knowing that I had never truly been happy and the momentary spurts of
what felt like happiness when Anna and I were together were only another lie.
My final confession in these pages is that I am a kind, sensitive human
being that has never lived a true life. My
time with Anna brought me to the top of the wall, but I always fell off the
outside, knowing how warm and safe it looked on the other side.
“Any
idiot can face a crisis,
it’s
the day to day living that wears you out.”
-Anton
Chekhov
© Kenny Wolford, 2001
Final
(take-home exam) Papers
~ webpublished
with student permission ~
Dan
Cox
Eng 104, Dr. Agatucci
Take-Home Final
3 December 2001
[Charlotte
Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"
and Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis"]
For the 19th Century author and story, I have
chose to write about Charlotte Gilman and The Yellow Wallpaper.
This story was written around 1890.
It is classified as 19th Century Realism, characterized
by social problems and everyday events regarding people’s lives.
Charlotte Gillman suffered from depression and had a nervous
breakdown at one point in her life, which ultimately lead to suicide..
Her story gives the impression that she is possibly writing about
her own circumstances. She
uses short paragraphs and simple sentences to develop a complex story that
was not easily accepted at the time she wrote it.
The Yellow Wallpaper’s main character is
mentally ill. The story is
told from within her mind, including some dialogue with Jane and her
husband John. Right away we
are immersed into the main character and begin to see life through her
eyes. She begins to describe the feelings about the room she is
living in and builds upon an obsession with the wallpaper. “I never saw a worse paper in my life” (Gilman 320).
She begins to tear the paper off the wall a little at a time, until
she sees a person behind it and starts to frantically tear it off, or as
much as she can. Only then
does she feel free from her husband and Jane, realizing that the person
behind the paper is herself.
For the 20th Century author and story, I have
chose to write about Franz Kafka and The Metamorphosis.
This story is considered a Modernist fictional work that challenges
the literary conventions. Although
by today’s standards it may not be considered a horror story, at the
time it was written, 1915, it probably would have been.
It almost seemed comical but it deals greatly with the social
issues of the time, many of which we are still being dealt with.
Franz Kafka was a Jew with an authoritarian father whom he feared.
He lived most of his life with his parents. Franz was despaired with most of his life, including his
writings (Charters 438).
The Metamorphosis’ main character is Gregor
Samsa who one morning wakes up as a bug.
He is a very structured person who cares for his family, especially
his sister, and wants to see her attend the Consortium.
The story is very detailed in talking about how one gets out of a
bed after waking up as a bug. Although
his family grows tired of him as a bug, one can relate this to the social
complexities of a family member that is possibly handicapped or other was
not “normal”, or maybe even sick with a mental condition.
Only after Gregor’s death does the family seem to be able to move
on with their lives, even to the point of getting rid of the house they
lived in so as to forget the previous situation.
Both stories seem to describe some aspect of the
authors’ own lives. Charlotte
Perkins Gilman, who also suffered under medical care said, “For many
years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to
melancholia – and beyond” (Course Packet 24).
Kafka once said, “What will be my fate as a writer is very
simple. My talent for
portraying my dreamlike inner life has thrust all other matters into the
background.” (Charters 438). Literary
critics tend to interpret the insect as a Freudian symbol of Kafka’s
sense of inadequacy in regard to his authoritarian father (Charters 438).
Literary realism exists in our present day, as well as in the past.
Stories often represent the everyday events of our lives, the
social issues, and the events that occur in our time period, as well as
previous time periods. For
both Gilman and Kafka, the stories they write seem to represent some
aspect of their own personal life.
A significant difference between the two stories is that
Gilman writes about a believable real life situation whereas Kafka writes
about a fictional situation, possibly based on a real life situation or
feeling about life, specifically that of the relationship between his
father and himself.
The Yellow Wallpaper is simply a fictional
story of a woman confined to a room in the house.
She is sick, although more so to herself than her husband believes.
The opening line is very believable.
“It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself
secure ancestral halls for the summer” (Gilman 319).
The opening line of The Metamorphosis says, “As
Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself
transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect” (Kafka 439). The story is fictional from the start, but throughout the
story, Gregor refers to the feelings of his mother, father, and sister.
His sister describes the feelings of the house when she says, “He
must go. That’s the only
solution, Father. You must
just try to get rid of the idea that this is Gregor.
The fact that we have believed it for so long is the root of all
our trouble” (Kafka 468).
These differences do not necessarily change over time,
but are very representative of their specific time. 19th Century doctors did not know as much about
mental illnesses as is known today. The
Metamorphosis is even described as a Freudian symbol.
Rather than the real life experience, a symbol is used to describe
the feelings of the author, rather than a readily believable situation
like The Yellow Wallpaper.
I would like to evaluate The Yellow Wallpaper on
the following criteria:
- The extent to which the story opens for us the
emotional, moral, intellectual and social complexities of its theme
- The extent to which the story captures some aspects of
human experience vividly, precisely and freshly
Stories
are often written about life, or the life of someone in order to present a
problem or solution. In other
words, what happened to someone so that hopefully, one can understand the
person better or even prevent what happened from happening again to
someone else.
In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator states the
emotional, moral, intellectual and social complexities of its theme when
she says, “If a physician of high standing, and one’s 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?” (Gilman 319). At
the end of the story, she says to her husband,
“I’ve got out at last in spite of you and Jane.
And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me
back!” (Gilman 330). We are
introduced to her mental problem and in the end, she solves it, at least
to her thinking. The first
criterion has been met.
The second criterion, capturing some aspect of human
experience vividly, precisely and freshly, has also been met. This
type of story was not common when it was written.
One can write about an experience, but to write about one and make
it believable is another thing. The
main character loves to write but her husband doesn’t want her to.
She desires to express herself.
Her husband believes it is counterproductive to her recovery.
The main character says in the beginning of the story, “I did
write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal –
having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition”
(Gilman 319) and again, “There comes John, and I must put this away, -
he hates to have me write a word.” (Gilman 320).
Her husband’s treatment is what seems to be counterproductive to
her recovery. “I think
sometimes if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve
the press of ideas and rest me.” (Gilman 321).
In conclusion, based on the criteria above, I would
recommend this work of fiction. It
deals with the social issues of both the present and the past in a fresh
way for the time it was written and even pertains to our present day.
The use of the first person narrative from within the mind of the
main character, only adds to the realism of the story.
