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"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story about a woman who is suffering from post – partum depression. She starts seeing a woman in the ugly yellow wallpaper in her bedroom and begins to go a little crazy because of it. She is on bed rest, ordered by her husband and brother, who are physicians, and is not allowed any contact with her newborn baby. She enjoys writing about her life, like a diary, which is how the story is formatted. As the story continues, it get darker and darker, and the woman becomes more enveloped in the figures in the wallpaper, because she simply has nothing else to do with her life since she is locked up in her bedroom. To me, it seems like she is seeing herself in the wallpaper: a woman who is “locked up” behind bars, itching to get out. She convinces herself at the end of the story that she truly is the woman in the wallpaper. She begins to think she is getting better when in reality, she is getting worse as the story continues. This is because she is neglected real care by her husband and treated like she is a hopeless case. The point of the story is to show how mental illness is disregarded in women, specifically during this 19th century time period, though it still is today.

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“The Awakening” centers around Edna Pontellier, a woman who is suffering from bipolar disorder, except at the time, no one really knew what that was. She endures extreme highs and lows, like going out on a whim and buying a house so she doesn’t have to live with her husband and neglecting taking care of her children. She is often depicted being overly emotional and crying over the littlest things, while also being defiant and not of the usual type of woman for this time period. I think the premise of this text is to highlight how if women were acting differently from the norm, or “crazy”, you could say, it had to be because of a man. Edna pines over Robert Lebrun throughout the whole text, and eventually, she gets to share a moment with him, just for him to disappear again. The book is a commentary on how that isn’t necessarily the truth, and that even though that was going on, there were many other factors to what most people believe was Edna’s suicide at the end of the book. It is something that is debated on, but to me, when she swims into the ocean and the text depicts her having no fear of how far she swam out even though she is not a strong swimmer, it shows that she was trying not to live anymore. It even quotes a phrase from another point in the book: “Good – by – because I love you.” (Chopin, 121). She sees flashes of her childhood right as the story ends as well. To me, this depicts the mistreatment of Edna and her illness and how it drove her to want to end her life.

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“Wanting to Die” is poet Anne Sexton’s experience with suicidal thoughts plastered onto a page. She details how her suicidal ideation comes in waves, even when she feels nothing is wrong in her life. How it waits for her to experience something bad so it can come back and haunt her. How even if you don’t physically harm yourself, these thoughts are hurting your body in ways you can’t even imagine. She describes it well as an “infection”. It’s a very raw take filled with literal and figurative expressions of the lust someone feels for taking their own life. It ends with expressing the things they leave “open”, the things that are left unfinished. I think the point of this poem was to express how even though someone may appear to be doing well to others, there is always a darkness that can be within them. I think this is very relevant to mental health in society in general, as it is overlooked if on the outside, you appear to be doing okay and not having any issues. The mask is a very dangerous thing. What makes this poem so surreal is that it most likely is the real thoughts of Anne Sexton, as she ended up committing suicide many years after this poem was written.

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Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.

I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.

Then the almost unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.

I know well the grass blades you mention,

the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.

Like carpenters they want to know which tools.

They never ask why build.

Twice I have so simply declared myself,

have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,

have taken on his craft, his magic.

In this way, heavy and thoughtful,

warmer than oil or water,

I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.

I did not think of my body at needle point.

Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.

Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they don't always die,

but dazzled, they can't forget a drug so sweet

that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue!-

that, all by itself, becomes a passion.

Death's a sad bone; bruised, you'd say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year,

to so delicately undo an old wound,

to empty my breath from its bad prison.

Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet,

raging at the fruit a pumped-up moon,

leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,

leaving the page of the book carelessly open,

something unsaid, the phone off the hook

and the love whatever it was, an infection.

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Twice I have so simply declared myself, have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy, have taken on his craft, his magic. Death's a sad bone; bruised, you'd say, and yet she waits for me, year after year, to so delicately undo an old wound, to empty my breath from its bad prison.

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Do you think it is more effective to have more “hidden” tones of mental health/illness, like in “The Yellow Wallpaper” or “The Awakening”, or do you believe it is more effective to be more straightforward with it like in “Wanting to Die”? Which one makes you think and analyze more about the mental health issues portrayed?