The Yellow Wallpaper Reaction

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman exemplifies what an affect sexism can have on a person. During the story, we see the narrator’s depression transform into madness. Because of her depression, the narrator is placed in an isolated room which is also likely due to her gender. Women were looked at to be so inferior to men at that time, so when the slightest weakness is seen in her, her husband takes advantage of the opportunity and suggests that she remain in confinement until she is well again. Consequently however, this drives her even deeper into her repression. During that time period, women were expected to be content with taking care of the housework and children, but because she was unwell, she was not even allowed to do that much. What is most interesting is how well she listens to her husband. Their relationship seems to resemble more of a father-daughter relationship rather than a married couple. This is exemplified when the narrator attempts to voice her feelings but, “stopped short, for he sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say a word.” This implies that if she were able to actually have a true conversation with her husband, she may have been able to retain some sanity. Instead, she is driven crazy by this significant yellow wallpaper and a woman trapped behind it. By the end of the story, it can be concluded that the woman behind the wallpaper really resembled the narrator, trapped in her own mind. She seeks freedom through her writing but it is not enough to fulfill her. Instead, the loneliness she feels overtakes her and she physically becomes the woman by creeping about. By ripping off the wallpaper, she rips off the confinement her husband, John has placed upon her and she is now able to create her own identity. While she was slightly mad before she was placed in the solitary room, the inferiority and loneliness she feels drives her even further into insanity.

Ethan Frome Literary Criticism

In Alfred Kazin's "Afterword to Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton," a brief biography of Edith Wharton is provided along with the themes of class and morality found in Ethan Frome. In the beginning the author summarizes the aspects of Edith Wharton’s life which caused the melancholy tone throughout her novella. One main point is the unhappiness she had in her marriage to Edward Wharton. Along with much infidelity, their marriage consisted of envy and “extraordinary bitterness.” (279) The author believes that this is the main cause of the actions of Ethan Frome and the cause of the idea of forbidden love being the only real type of love. This is proven in his thesis which states, “In turning her jaundiced view of love and marriage on the hidebound New England farm folk of Ethan Frome, she was able, in the most gripping way, to project her dark view of marriage onto a class and its customs that were far removed from her socially.” (279) He supports this throughout the essay with statements such as, “there is no doubt that the overwhelming, painful starkness of Ethan Frome derives in part from Edith Wharton’s extreme consciousness of class.” (280) The author of the essay then goes on to describe just how hopeless the farm life in New England was at that time. Also, he points out that how due to his lack of money, Ethan is unable to pursue his lust for Mattie and is pushed to the option of suicide. This supports the Edith Wharton’s ideas regarding class, which is that the lower classes cannot find happiness, despite her lack of happiness while being in a higher class. Alfred Kazin also believes that the book was written on the basis that “love must transgress conventional morality, but it cannot. It consequently becomes a chimera, impossibility, a cheat.” This is supported by Wharton’s statement that “life is the saddest thing, next to death.” (280) Overall, the essay is based on the idea that love is impossible, especially for those in the lower class. As Alfred Kazin stated, Wharton believed that, “for love to really be love, it must be forbidden, it must fail, it must carry the doomed lovers down with it.”

In my opinion, the argument was not presented very well. The main point that the author was trying to make seemed unclear and nearly half of the essay was simply a biography of Wharton’s life. While this allows the reader to make connections between her life and her novella, it takes away from the main point that the author is attempting to make. Also, throughout the essay, there seemed to be a few contradicting ideas such as the statement that Wharton, “despite her sympathy for the lovers, she is in an old-fashioned American way the strictest of moralists.” However, Wharton’s affair with another man, due to her dislike for her husband, is mentioned earlier in the essay proving that her morality was not as strong as she may have claimed it to be and that she was quite a hypocrite. Due to the inconsistencies found in Alfred Kazin’s essay, I do not wholly support his claims. I believe that love can indeed be found without it being “forbidden” and that one does not have to be affluent in order to obtain it. What both Alfred Kazin and Edith Wharton failed to see is that with patience and persistence, love can be found. Neither money nor the ideas of forbidden love are necessary for one to fall in love and to be happy. While I find the information and ideas that Alfred Kazin expresses in his essay, “Afterword to Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton,” to be very interesting, I disagree with the stand he takes.