Blue Team by Frances Oliver

Hannah's answer

oliverfrancesa — 2024-03-14 15:56:59 UTC

The effect of isolation can have more than one outcome. Being isolated from others can make someone feel as though they're going insane and will do everything to get out. On the other hand, some people could find comfort in it and despise any sort of change. In the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Gilman Perkins, the narrator talks about her husband keeping her up in a room in the ancestral hall they're staying in for the summer. The narrator's opinion of her isolation changes from her hating the place she is at and wanting to get out at the beginning, to her finding a sort of comfort in the room. The narrator talks about her husband being a physician and how he takes good care of her. However, there are thoughts of doubt shown by the narrator throughout. The narrator explains how she thinks her condition would improve if she were faced with more stimulus and less opposition. Her husband, John, tells her that thinking about her condition will worsen it; she quickly changes the subject to the house. On page four, within the fifth and eighth paragraphs, the narrator says, "I wish I could get well faster. But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it KNEW what a vicious influence it had! I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness." She uses the wallpaper as a safety net to throw all the wrong in her life onto. In paragraph twenty, page four, she writes, "This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade..." The sub-pattern of the wallpaper symbolizes her subconscious thoughts and feelings about her husband, while the main pattern is how she wants to see him. On page five, paragraphs fourteen and fifteen, the narrator says, "I'm getting fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps BECAUSE of the wallpaper. It dwells in my mind so!" In this segment of the text, she is finding comfort in the wallpaper. This symbolizes how she may find comfort in the unsettling outside of the room. Towards the end of the story, page eleven, it is the day the narrator and her husband are meant to leave, although she has a newfound security in the room. She writes in paragraph sixteen, "But I am here, and no person touches this paper but me-not ALIVE!" This piece of the text shows the possessiveness she has gained over the room, especially the yellow wallpaper.

Tug's answer

oliverfrancesa — 2024-03-14 15:58:39 UTC

Isolation seriously affects the narrator's mental state in "The Yellow Wallpaper". Throughout the story, the narrator's isolation in a room with disturbing wallpaper guides her mental health in an unpleasant direction. She becomes obsessed with the wallpaper's design, worsening her state of mind. This shows how prolonged isolation can intensify existing mental health and lead to delusion.

Tug's answer

oliverfrancesa — 2024-03-20 14:11:15 UTC

Women were viewed as property, mistreated, and tyrannized by their husbands and society. As shown in the sixth line, "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage". This statement underlines the notion of women involved in corrupt marriages, furthermore, women were not taken seriously and belittled.

Frances' answer

oliverfrancesa — 2024-03-20 14:11:43 UTC

Women were infantilized and viewed as less than men in the society in which these pieces were written. This is shown in The Yellow Wallpaper, a Gothic realistic piece, in several ways. In this story, the main character is not only dependent on John as his wife but also as his patient. She is treated as though she has no idea what she is talking about when it comes to her health when John, as her physician, "assures friends and relatives that there is nothing the matter other than temporary nervous depression," the way women were viewed as emotional to a fault during this period is shown in that quote because he treats it like nothing but silly woman emotions that are just temporary. That infantilization is also shown in the text on the second page when the narrator reveals that her husband "hardly lets me stir without special direction," as well as on page seven when John says, "Bless her little heart!" The narrator is seen as a child or an object in this fiction and others in reality because that is how they were viewed in real life.

Hannah's answer

oliverfrancesa — 2024-03-20 14:11:51 UTC

At the time the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" was written, the mindset of women being seen but not heard was extremely common. As seen on the first page, the narrator's husband John, "assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression..." Not only is her own husband shrinking the severity of the narrator's issues, he is silencing her voice and explaining to relatives that she is fine. This is his way of keeping people from knowing what happens behind closed doors.

Hannah's Question

oliverfrancesa — 2024-03-20 15:39:16 UTC

Apply what you know about isolation and how it can effect someone's mind.

Frances' Question

oliverfrancesa — 2024-03-20 15:39:40 UTC

How is the way women were viewed/treated during that period portrayed in realism literature?

Frances' answer

oliverfrancesa — 2024-03-20 15:42:27 UTC

Isolation can have different effects based on different factors, some people like it, and some people despise it, in real life, isolation doesn't have to mean being trapped in a room with nothing but yourself, but no matter if you think of it as a well-needed reset or something you need to escape it affects your mental state. At the time these romantic and realistic literary pieces were written, emotion and mental health (especially women) were ignored, whether that ignoration meant acting like it didn't exist and going about life or in this case and others extremely limiting the patient. In The Yellow Wallpaper, a woman is kept in an estate as a way to cure her mental illness, she stays in a certain room but hates it and tries to get out of the house and garden as much as possible. Since she spends most of her time alone in that room she finds a way to stay entertained in the room, eventually finding comfort in her little practices and therefore not wanting to leave like she did earlier. This portion of the story shows how these conditions can affect one's mental state because her wants and thoughts change drastically. She put all the energy and emotion that she had for everything in the beginning into just her little entertainment, the wallpaper. She looks at the paper eventually expecting and finding changes even though the wallpaper locally cannot move. Isolation affected her mind to the point that she was the definition of insane, and could do similar to anyone.

Izzy's Answer

2024-03-21 14:11:39 UTC

The effect of isolation on the narrator plays significance in the mind of the narrator herself because throughout the story she is constantly alone with only her thoughts or keep her occupied and accompanied. As the is left alone in this hows, a disgusting yellow wall paper haunts her as she becomes more and more obsessed with it and also horrified so much she even says it has a "smell" and she can "see ladies inside the wall".

Izzy's Answer

2024-03-21 14:18:44 UTC

When this story, "The Yellow Wallpaper", was written, women as a whole were very overlooked. This led to normalizing things that were not necessarily normal but people, specifically men, would treat women as if they did not know anything; John sort of gaslight the narrator of this story into thinking this was normal for her to be going through.

Izzy's Questions

2024-03-22 13:58:01 UTC

How does betrayal affect a group of people?

Hannah's answer

millerhannahb — 2024-03-22 14:00:09 UTC

Betrayal can affect a group of people by making people turn to unnecessary actions. In the short story "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" written by Bret Harte, the main character Mr. John Oakhurst is being hunted down by a secret committee in the town. In the third paragraph on the first page, Harte wrote, "A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men who were then hanging from the boughs of the sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily in thee banishment of certain other objectionable characters." The town decided to resort to killing instead of something more logical. People often get defensive and try to erase mistakes instead of taking the time to solve any disagreements.

Frances' answer

oliverfrancesa — 2024-03-22 14:00:55 UTC

Betrayal can affect people very negatively. It can be upsetting because the betrayer made it feel like they cared about the group at least a little first. At the point in The Outcasts of Poker Flat when Uncle Billy, a robber and a drunk, betrays the group and takes off with the mules Oakhurst doesn't tell the rest of the team what actually happened because he knows it would upset the girls. "For some occult reason, Mr. Oakhurst could not bring himself to disclose Uncle Billy's rascality," the text states showing that Oakhurst knew that the thought of a friend not really caring at all and simply using them would "frighten" the others and negatively affect the morale or cause suspicion of other traitors. Those same effects of betrayal shown in this realistic piece can also be seen in real life with any group of people.

Tug's answer

heiskellthurgoods — 2024-03-22 14:04:35 UTC

Izzy's answer

2024-03-22 14:12:17 UTC

Throughout this short story "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" betrayal can affect a group of people because once one person turns their back on a group/ society, everyone in the group is on edge and quick to judge the next. This sometimes leads to punishing people with unlawful fates (hanging and exile). "He listened calmly to Mother Shipton's desire to cut somebody's heart out...", This is just showing that instead of the people of Poker Flat reasoning with John, they instead want to quickly resort to violence.

Tug's Question

heiskellthurgoods — 2024-03-25 01:17:46 UTC

How does Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat" explore the theme of existentialism?

Tug's answer

heiskellthurgoods — 2024-03-25 01:43:34 UTC

"The Open Boat" explores existential themes through its representation of the harsh natural world. The characters struggle for meaning and purpose in the midst of adversity. Crane prompts readers to question the absurdity of existence and the search for purpose.

Hannah's answer

millerhannahb — 2024-03-25 14:29:04 UTC

In the short story "The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane, he explores the theme of existentialism by showing how life is unpredictable and how you must use what is provided for you. On page four, Crane wrote, "IT WOULD BE difficult to describe the subtle brotherhood of that was here established on the seas. No one said that it was so. No one mentioned it. But it dwelt in the boat, and each man felt it warm him." Even though their ship had crashed, they made the most of what they had.

Izzy's Answer

dozierisabellar — 2024-03-25 14:36:36 UTC