Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Charlotte Perkins Gilman II
Katja
ENGL 48B
Journal # 28, Gilman II
6 March, 2007
"It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide" (Charlotte Perkins Gilman 834)
In Gilman’s work The Yellow Wall-paper, the not-important-enough-to-be-named female protagonist searches the wallpaper in her chamber of horrors for patterns. She attempts to allow them to led her one way or another, however they only serve to confuse or anger her.
I can imagine that someone caught up in such chaos would believe that any pattern would lend order to life. Caught in an eddy between reality and fantasy, the woman is searching for wallpaper patterns to aid her out of her position of depression and angst, while simultaneously offering a roadmap to her future. Naturally, the reader sees the tragic futility with the woman’s identifying with the wall decor. The irony lies in the fact that any and all previously existing patterns and routines in the woman’s "normal" life have been systematically removed and replaced with a complete set of unknowns in order to benefit her health. On the other hand, one can consider the pattern fixation a mere obsession; a result of her illness and further evidence of her downwards spiral towards the nadir of insanity.
What I found to be incongruous was the fact that the woman was able to be so tightly focused on the wallpaper—"by the hour" (837)—yet failed to be able to follow its figures, as if they were amorphous or indistinct. Gilman allows her character to be quite precise in other descriptions, of the garden and the room itself, while offering descriptions of nondescript-ness when referring to the wallpaper. This technique has the effect of a photograph where some sections are intentionally blurry and other parts of the composition are in focus. It makes you wonder about the blurry parts.
ENGL 48B
Journal # 28, Gilman II
6 March, 2007
"It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide" (Charlotte Perkins Gilman 834)
In Gilman’s work The Yellow Wall-paper, the not-important-enough-to-be-named female protagonist searches the wallpaper in her chamber of horrors for patterns. She attempts to allow them to led her one way or another, however they only serve to confuse or anger her.
I can imagine that someone caught up in such chaos would believe that any pattern would lend order to life. Caught in an eddy between reality and fantasy, the woman is searching for wallpaper patterns to aid her out of her position of depression and angst, while simultaneously offering a roadmap to her future. Naturally, the reader sees the tragic futility with the woman’s identifying with the wall decor. The irony lies in the fact that any and all previously existing patterns and routines in the woman’s "normal" life have been systematically removed and replaced with a complete set of unknowns in order to benefit her health. On the other hand, one can consider the pattern fixation a mere obsession; a result of her illness and further evidence of her downwards spiral towards the nadir of insanity.
What I found to be incongruous was the fact that the woman was able to be so tightly focused on the wallpaper—"by the hour" (837)—yet failed to be able to follow its figures, as if they were amorphous or indistinct. Gilman allows her character to be quite precise in other descriptions, of the garden and the room itself, while offering descriptions of nondescript-ness when referring to the wallpaper. This technique has the effect of a photograph where some sections are intentionally blurry and other parts of the composition are in focus. It makes you wonder about the blurry parts.
# posted by Katja @ 10:08 PM 
