I accidently posted my post without stating my opinion about the short story! So I'm going to answer my own post in this comment instead.
The 1st-person narrative point of view heavily affected my experience when reading this short story. I actually asked myself what the other character's perspectives where when I was reading this story; primarily when "[Else] asked [Jennie] in a quiet voice, with the most restrained manner possible, what she was doing with the paper [and] [Jennie] turned around as if she had been caught stealing, and looked quite angry."
Else's newly formed negative point of view of Jennie preplexed me, and I began wondering how other characters, such as Jennie and John,would describe the same scene, and many other scenes in the short story.
Another reason why the 1st-person narrative point of view, Else's point of view, affected me, and I assume many other readers, is because of Else's unnatural and possibly ill mental state. Since Else is possibly not sane herself, we cannot understand the message portrayed in the short story until we decipher Else herself. In other words, we first must understand her mental condition to understand the true meaning of her actions and why the author included such abnormal actions into the short story.
Having this 1st person narration from Else's perspective is not all negative, however. Since I am currently taking a psychology class, I immediately looked to Else's condition from a psychologists perspective. It is actually very helpful that "The Yellow Wallpaper" is written in a 1st person narrative because the narration is coming from the subject in question that we would like to decode, Else. This allows readers and myself to get a front row seat into Else's mind, her thoughts, her feelings, and most inportantly her point of view. This way, we are fused with the subject, Else, herself and experience everything she is, but still contain our sanity. Of course, having an outside perspective would definately help in understanding Else, since we would then be able to compare and contrast Else's unstable view, and another, more stable view on events.
I had not thought of trying to see the situation from the other characters perspective. It does open the story up. I'm sure the scene at the end must have been quite a shock to her husband. I did think fainting was a bit much though.
Haha yes fainting does seem to be overdramatic, but I believe the author made her husband faint in order to be able to show the narrator crawling over him once he's on the floor. This action is very powerful and symbolizes women overcoming the shackles men held women in during this time period. All in all, one simple way to get her husband on the floor in the first place is to make him faint!
I accidently posted my post without stating my opinion about the short story!
ReplyDeleteSo I'm going to answer my own post in this comment instead.
The 1st-person narrative point of view heavily affected my experience when reading this short story. I actually asked myself what the other character's perspectives where when I was reading this story; primarily when "[Else] asked [Jennie] in a quiet voice, with the most restrained manner possible, what she was doing with the paper [and] [Jennie] turned around as if she had been caught stealing, and looked quite angry."
Else's newly formed negative point of view of Jennie preplexed me, and I began wondering how other characters, such as Jennie and John,would describe the same scene, and many other scenes in the short story.
Another reason why the 1st-person narrative point of view, Else's point of view, affected me, and I assume many other readers, is because of Else's unnatural and possibly ill mental state. Since Else is possibly not sane herself, we cannot understand the message portrayed in the short story until we decipher Else herself. In other words, we first must understand her mental condition to understand the true meaning of her actions and why the author included such abnormal actions into the short story.
Having this 1st person narration from Else's perspective is not all negative, however. Since I am currently taking a psychology class, I immediately looked to Else's condition from a psychologists perspective. It is actually very helpful that "The Yellow Wallpaper" is written in a 1st person narrative because the narration is coming from the subject in question that we would like to decode, Else. This allows readers and myself to get a front row seat into Else's mind, her thoughts, her feelings, and most inportantly her point of view. This way, we are fused with the subject, Else, herself and experience everything she is, but still contain our sanity. Of course, having an outside perspective would definately help in understanding Else, since we would then be able to compare and contrast Else's unstable view, and another, more stable view on events.
I had not thought of trying to see the situation from the other characters perspective. It does open the story up. I'm sure the scene at the end must have been quite a shock to her husband. I did think fainting was a bit much though.
ReplyDeleteHaha yes fainting does seem to be overdramatic, but I believe the author made her husband faint in order to be able to show the narrator crawling over him once he's on the floor. This action is very powerful and symbolizes women overcoming the shackles men held women in during this time period. All in all, one simple way to get her husband on the floor in the first place is to make him faint!
ReplyDelete