The Yellow Wallpaper

In The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman uses a pretty obvious metaphoric device to portray the emotional state of her character. In her hallucinationatory state, she perceives a woman trapped behind the wallpaper of her room. Her state is such, that the wallpaper makes her physically ill and she attempts to free this "woman". After some time, she begins to see not only one, but that there were perhaps "a great many women behind".
Gilman's message is blatant. Her main character, as a woman, is trapped in a world from which she cannot escape. She is treated essentially as a child by her husband and all those around her, and is powerless to effect her own life and do as she feels is best. She cannot free herself, and she imagines the woman trapped behind the wallpaper, and attempts to extricate her. Instead of understanding that it is her own confining life which is making her ill, in her hallucinations, she imagines that it is the wallpaper (symbolizing her life) which is making her mad.
I found that Gilman's point, while clear and effective, was somewhat too obviously stated in her story. The metaphor is too apparent, the device too simple, and left very little up to the reader to interpret.

Analyzing Plot

Chekhov’s plot in “The lady with the pet dog” is neatly worked-out. It’s orderly well. It begins with exposition of Anna and Gurov’s encounter and developed their lovers’ relationship. Exposition continues their experiences of love when they were together to their parted. Meanwhile, rising action began simultaneous with their parted feelings on each other. Gurov felt he must see her again. So the climax followed with his eagerness to see her. He traveled to his lover’s town to seek her. Resolution followed the last.

Oates’ differentiates of using plot are not sequential. Although she changed her plot’s order, her story still is easy followed to readers. In her “The lady with the pet dog” She didn’t use exposition for her story beginning. Instead, the climax she used first. The story lovers met again in the concert hall. We don’t know what’s happened in their past. Oates so used flashbacked in second her second part to give the exposition. Resolution also followed the last.

The Yellow Wallpaper- Reader and Writer

Charlotte Perkins is clearly trying to portray a character that is in need of self-finding. The main character is informing the reader about her different emotional stages through the story. This technique creates a more solid bond between the reader and the character. Perkins sets a story, in which a woman is found trap in a fantasy that surrounds her husband John, becoming unable to think or act as her free will wanted. Creating an illusionary world that she perhaps is force to maintain and live in. She finds that the only exit from this world is to relay on her ability to express her emotions in writing, and the huge symbolism that comes to play the yellow wallpaper surrounding the room. This symbol planned by Charlotte represent the key to unlock the self-dependent woman that lives within our main character.

Chekhov & Oates

I was quite intrigued by the two stories of The Lady with the Pet Dog and what they are trying to reveal to the readers. Although both stories are quite similar in their themes of love, passion and adultery, and their conclusions leave the reader in uncertainty of the outcome, the two stories are from two very different viewpoints. In Chekhov's version, the story sheds light on the man's view of an adulterous relationship and the despise he has for his wife. Dmitry "considered her [his wife] of limited intelligence, narrow-minded, dowdy" and was even afraid to go home to her. Throughout his past affairs with other women, the amour started off as a "light and charming adventure" however it usually culminates and "grows into a painful problem of extreme complexity, and in the end a painful situation is created." However, with his new lover, Anna, her image did not flee from him and all those memories came back to him. He sought her out and despite her reluctance, she gave in to her desires. However, the last paragraph gives no indication as to the final conclusion of the story.
In Oates' version of the story, the point of view is from the adulteress and how she feels throughout the affair. She feels sick with her husband and "for years now they had not been comfortable together." During her infidelity, she fights off the urges to be with her lover but she too succumbs to the temptation. She needs reassurance from her lover that he indeeds loves her, however in the end, just as she feels its all over, she comes to the realization that "this man was her husband" in a sense that she had truly loved him, the 'lover' and not her married husband.

The Yellow Wallpaper

The story is basically about a woman that needs some sort of Independence to make herself sane. The fact that her husband treats her like his child and not his wife doesn't help her "temporary nervous depression." We follow the character as she free's herself from her husbands ways. She uses the wallpaper as her guide to find out that she is her own person.
Her mental state leaves her to hallucinate a character behind the wallpaper and once she frees this imaginary character she has freed herself.

roselily

The omniscient narrator tells us about a woman on her wedding day. I feel like she is getting married for a second time out of necessity not for love. In the story the narrator tells us that she didn't want to raise her children alone anymore. That she didn't love him, but she loved things about him. But she feels she will be trapped. But she also doesn't know how she quite feels.

Battle Royal

"Battle Royal" is a story that makes us think about the past as well as the present and the future. At first, the story begins with the author over-hearing some news that he wasn't supposed to know about. The information that his grandfather was a spy has now "made" his life. It shaped the way he thought, portrayed himself, and changed the way he evaluated people.

This excerpt was interesting because who would have thought bankers, lawyers, doctors, and other people who have high professions would ever be caught in a place such as this. They covered up fight-fest as a "meeting" where all they did was drink, fight, and watch the young women on the stage. This piece by Ellison contradicts everything the "common people" in the world portray them as. Some may say they are people too and would like to have some fun. Others would say people of high standard should uphold their standards by all means.

I liked this story because it touched many areas. Politics, history, language, and even gymnastics, if you may. It kept me interested because it wasn't set on one particular area.

One question I have, which probably can't be answered is if this still goes on today.
The world is changing day by day. But are the things that need to be changed being changed?