Next Steps and Draft: The Yellow Wallpaper

I'm ready to just get this paper done, out of my system, and off of my to-do list!  A rough draft will be good to help me finally get everything organized and written out in cohesive ideas. Talking through my plans with Dr. Burton was so effective on Monday! He helped me realize that my initial ideas were..uhh...pretty cliche.  Soooo some revision was necessary.  Luckily, he showed me a different option that could also be great and pretty unique, so now my subject will be: "Women and Hysteria: Relating Mental Health and Women's Issues through the Lens of 'The Yellow Wallpaper.'" This isn't the title because it's not super engaging at all, but it's a start.



Here's where I'm thinking of going with it:

• Discussing hysteria: definitions, roots, etc.
• Example: "The Yellow Wallpaper": Descent into insanity. Symbols of the bolted bed, barred windows, entrapment not only physically, but mentally
• How the story stemmed from the experiences of author Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Never taken seriously
• Suffered at the hands of her husband
• Gilman wasn't the only writer; "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell. Contemporaries felt the same way b/c this was a peak of oppressed issues
• Mental health and the development of treatments. How does it relate to women's issues?
• Current Application: Are women expected to be logical today?

These are just a few ideas. I hope to have a solid organization and draft of this paper by the end of the time and want to get started polishing it up.

4:00pm

It's been a long time since I've struggled with a paper this much.  I don't know why, but nothing could come to my mind! I was able to get a start on a couple of the paragraphs and I know how I want things organized in a basic manner, but I'm pretty disappointed that I wasn't able to get more of it done.   Here's a copy of what I was able to come up with.  Help!

Also, it was easier for me to come up with stuff when it was organized into bullet points. Sorry if that's not great formatting...

The Yellow Wallpaper: Draft

Intro:

• ·       Crazy mother-in-laws. Insane ex-girlfriends. Cat ladies. Eccentric aunts that wear weird scarves.  Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” music video.  Somehow, society has created a connection between women and abnormal behavior that allows them to behave in ways that are generally socially unacceptable. 

Thesis: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s work, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” supports the claim that although thought to be inherent to their sex, the illogical and hysterical nature of women is caused and nurtured by societal projections onto them.

Body:

• ·       Even the ancients thought this to be the case. The word “hysteria,” rooted in the Greek word “hystera” (meaning womb) was originally defined as “a neurotic condition peculiar to women and thought to be caused by a dysfunction of the uterus.” (insert source). Over time, it came to refer to unhealthy emotion and excitement.  It’s common knowledge that women are thought of as the more emotional sex.  More prone to overexcitement, less rational, easily worried, and difficult to appease.  This stereotype of illogical behavior has been promulgated throughout the years and has created hurdles for advocates of women’s rights. 
• ·       “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was written in an era when this oppressive notion of insanity was at its peak.  The story, written in the end of the 19^th century, recounts the tale of a woman suffering from what psychologists would today identify as post-partum depression.  After the birth of her child, she experiences “temporary nervous depression…a slight hysterical tendency” and her husband/physician decides that the best cure for the ailment is to lock away his young wife for an undetermined period of time until she gets better.  As illogical as the practice may seem, mental health was an unstudied field at the time, and afflictions such as this were often brushed under the rug or merely attributed to the nature of women.  Because of such views, women were often prevented from receiving the care they needed and suffered much more than necessary.  Indeed, throughout the story, the narrator looks for creative outlets to work through her problems, such as writing, but her efforts are stifled because they are not deemed appropriate by the patriarchal order under which she lives.
• ·       Sadly enough, author Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote this piece as a mirror for her own unfortunate experiences.  Gilman lived in the same era as the narrator of the story, from 1860-1935. 
• ·       The themes of madness projected upon women is not one wholly unique to “The Yellow Wallpaper.” One of Gilman’s contemporaries, Susan Glaspell, wrote a similar short story, “Trifles,” in which wives are forced to suppress and hide their personalities, ideas, and intelligence from their husbands.
• ·       Mental health stuff…
• ·       Applications of today stuff….

Conclusion: Yet to be determined.