The Demise of Reason in The Yellow Wallpaper

"The Yellow Wallpaper", by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, bears its Gothic roots as it demonstrates a struggle of ideas that would not appear out of place in literature by Poe or Hawthorne. Indeed, the one of the story's primary themes is the contrast between reason and madness. In The Yellow Wallpaper, reason is embodied by John, the narrator's husband and primary caregiver as she fights her sickness. John is a physician, and he stubbornly refuses to believe that anything out of the ordinary is happening to his wife, treating her physical needs while neglecting her emotional and spiritual needs. John attempts to help her feel better with medicine and privacy, when all she really needed was love and support. However, Gilman shows the flaw behind this logic, as this "cure," while rational, actually pushes the narrator further toward chaos and despair. Eventually the narrator loses her sanity completely in her room, succumbing to madness and completing the victory of chaos over reason.
From the beginning, John and the narrator appear to be an odd match for one another. John is a doctor who has "no patience with faith," while the narrator appears to believe in fate and spirituality even at the beginning of the story, intuitively sensing something "queer" about the house. Her suspicions are proved correct as she is placed, against her wishes, in the room with the horrifying yellow wallpaper, which disturbs her profoundly throughout the story. Gilman, through her affected narrator, goes into great detail about the wallpaper, which she describes as "a smoldering unclean yellow" with "bloated curves and flourishes." From the beginning, the narrator is bothered by the decoration, and asks John for permission to rest in a different room. John refuses, citing the "practical" concern that there was no room for a second bed in the other room. This refusal begins a story-long pattern of John ignoring his wife's increasingly desperate pleas for empathy and understanding. John fails in this respect, stubbornly refusing to leave the house even though it is clearly hurting, not helping, his wife. Even worse, he essentially abandons her in her time of need, working every day and some nights. In a sense, the narrator's obsession with the wallpaper and her eventual insanity are inevitable, as she is locked in her room all day and night, with nothing else but the wallpaper to occupy her attention. Even if she were not suffering from depression, this would not make for a healthy situation. Without John to help her, the narrator becomes obsessed with the wallpaper, accelerating her depression and driving her to madness.
Indeed, not only does John not help his wife with stubbornness and neglect, but there is also evidence that he actually aggravates her problems with his adherence to reason. Throughout the story, John believes so ardently that he is handling the problem correctly that he repeatedly overrides her protests in order to do what he thinks is right. This protectiveness is frequently taken to the extreme, where the narrator is chastised for even using her imagination. In fact, there is evidence that she is stifled in this way even before they get to the house. For example, the narrator proves willing to accept the rest cure that John proscribes to her, even though she says, "Personally, I disagree with their ideas." This is another instance of where John's reason and practicality actually contribute to the problem. The narrator is so repressed that she lets her imagination get the better of her while she watches the wallpaper. In this way, she also moves away from the concrete world that she never felt entirely comfortable with to another, more abstract world. In this abstract place, she seems to understand subconsciously just how trapped she is, as she begins to see a woman (possibly herself) hidden behind the design in the wallpaper, contained in the same way that she is. As she sinks further and further into madness, the narrator begins to empathize with the "women" in the design, reaching a level of understanding, in her own twisted way, that she never has with her husband. Indeed, it can be inferred that the narrator becomes so emotionally connected with the wallpaper because she is not receiving support from her husband.
Gilman does a brilliant job of showing the inadequacy of reason in certain situations. John, symbolizing all that is concrete and scientific in the world, tries in his own way to help his wife. However, his stubbornness and repression cause her to turn to the abstract world, as she eventually becomes completely insane. And when John faints at the end of the story upon seeing the state of his beloved wife, it represents the final demise of reason in "The Yellow Wallpaper." (807)
Questions:

To what extent is the story feminist in tone or content?

Why is the narrator discouraged by her husband and others from writing?

Why are other characters also interested in the wallpaper?

The story strongly suggests that something violent happened in the room before the couple moved in. Could this have something to do with the wallpaper?

The Five-Forty-Eight- An Analysis of the Other Main Characher

A lot was made about Mr. Blake (the twisted protagonist of John Cheever's The Five-Forty-Eight) in class today, but very little was said about the only other major character in the story: Miss Dent. I, for one, thought her character interesting enough to warrant further investigation. After some pondering, here are some of my conclusions.
Firstly, it seems that Miss Dent, in addition to being to story's antagonist, also acts as a foil to Mr. Blake. While Blake's character can best be described as being confident and well put-together on the outside and rotten on the inside, Miss Dent is the exact opposite. It is made relatively clear throughout the story that she is suffering from some sort of mental illness-- one that was present before the events of the story, though probably aggravated by the arrival of Blake into her life. Despite this, her words and contemptuous tone at the climax of the story makes the reader think that, as she claims, she really may know more about love than our disconnected narrator. There are more subtle clues about their contrasts in the text as well. Blake appears confident, if not cocky, throughout the story, while Miss Dent clearly has low self-esteem and openly longs for Blake's life. And, although it is not readily apparent, there is a contrast between Blake's emphasis on appearance and Miss Dent's claw like handwriting. The fact that Miss Dent acts as a foil to Blake accelerates the plot of the story and gives a level of deeper meaning to its climax.
Secondly, it appears that the two characters, so different yet completely interconnected within the story, end up switching roles following the climax of the story. Blake seems to be completely broken and shocked by the experience, not even bothering to dust himself off after putting his face in the dirt. Miss Dent, on the other hand, appears to be fortified by the experience and it is easy to understand her thought process. Lost in the story because Blake, rather than Miss Dent, is the narrator, is her emotional arc after he takes advantage of her and fires her. She slipped into a state of sickness and insanity. By her own description, the only that kept her going was her plan to exact some measure of revenge on Mr. Blake-- revenge she extracts during the climax of the story. The final confrontation was a bizarre scene, to say the least. The first time I read it, I felt a distinct sense of anticlimax at the end. However, I eventually concluded that something significant had taken place after all: both characters left the confrontation somewhat differently than they had arrived. Blake received the humbling blow to his arrogance that he desperately needed, and Miss Dent gained, in addition to confidence to stand up to her former tormentor, a sense of closure that may allow her to move on with her life. Miss Dent puts it simply at the very end, "Now I can wash my hands of you." This she does, putting to an end the emotional arc that plagued the most fascinating character in The Five-Forty-Eight. (522)

A Rose for Emily- Faulkner's Tribute to the Antebellum South

As I read Faulkner's A Rose for Emily, one particular theme that was not really touched upon in class stuck out in my mind: how Emily's "downward spiral" may have mirrored the downward spiral of Southern aristocracy. By extension, this could mean that Emily embodies the outdated customs of the Antebellum South. This theme is hinted at, but never fully established in the text. However, I, for one, found the hints too tantalizing to ignore.
Faulkner, it is important to remember, was a Southern writer (born in Mississippi) who was born about a generation after the Civil War. He was, therefore, perfectly positioned by birthright to write about the changes he had witnessed in the South. He also wrote "A Rose for Emily" a predominately retrospective form, creating a sense that the reader is looking back on something. Faulkner includes a plethora of hints in the text, both overt and subtle, that help to suggest that Emily embodies the pride and nobility of the pre-Civil War South.
First of all, it is outwardly stated that Emily was born in to a rather affluent Southern family that, according to the text, "held themselves a little too high for what they really were (paragraph 25)." Not only does this passage establish Emily as being the privileged daughter of a wealthy planter, but it also establishes her family as a relic of the Antebellum South, clinging to ideas such as pride and nobility of blood-- that the modern world had moved beyond. The changing beliefs of different generations is another important theme in the short story. In Emily's time, her taxes were taken care of by the mayor, Colonel Sartoris, with the implication she was being protected because of her status. A generation later, however, representatives from the town come calling expecting her to pay her dues. This is just another example of the changing values of the times, as Emily begins to lose her "credit" around the same time, chronologically, that the old southern values were falling apart. There are more subtle hints hidden in the story as well. Emily's father refusing to allow her to marry any of the young men in town (something that comes back to haunt Emily later in the story) because they weren't "quite good enough" shows yet again her family's reliance on the outdated caste system of the Antebellum South. Even the story's shocking ending is symbolic, as it shows Emily (and, through her, the wealthy gentlemen and ladies of the South) living far too much in the past and clinging to something that had long since died. Finally, the title also seemed to be a subtle clue about the symbolism present in the story. There are many theories about the significance of "A Rose for Emily" as a title. However, if you agree that Emily embodies the Antebellum South, then the title is appropriate for what the story appears to be: a tribute by Faulkner to the pre-Civil War South. Faulkner seems to be critical of the South in his story, but he also recognizes the tragedy of its demise, and he captures this tragic spiral perfectly in the characterization of Emily. Through his story, Faulkner pays homage, or "gives a rose", to the Antebellum South, shattered by the Civil War. (546)