The Yellow wallpaper, A jury of her Peers

   For the last week of reading, it was fairly straightforward. Both of these stories had a strong element of female literature. The yellow wallpaper was the most obvious expression of this. She was confined in her room by her husband, and was concerned for her physical health. After some time, he beings to notice her declining mental health. He puts her on the notorious "Rest Cure" that basically confines her to a room without anything in it in an attempt to cure her mind. She slowly starts to loose her mind as shown by the mysterious images and objects that "appear" in the wallpaper. They continually get worse and worse just as a woman is supposed to feel when confined by men. This is an obvious punch at the idea that men are superior to women, and gives a little suggestion towards equality among men and women.
   A Jury of her Peers is slightly more subtle about their attempts to make an obvious jab at the social norms of the time. The women figure out what has happened at the murder seen far before the men do. They know that the woman of the house has murdered the man, but it goes to show that the women are able to figure it out due to the close relation between their life styles.
   Both of these stories are obvious jabs at the current establishment of men as the dominate figure in society. One, in my opinion, slightly more obvious than the other.

Desire, A GoodMan is Hard to Find, Where are you going...

These stories are getting into more modern times, and the plots are more predictable to our modern minds, probably due to more of a realistic and natural protrayal of the dark side of human nature.

In the previous novels, all of the actions taken by the characters have some moral purpose in the end. Whether it is to make up for some past deed, or to simply help the character in immediate peril, there was always some obviously un-realistic action taken by the characters. Take for example Romance of the Forest, no one in their right mind would have not charged La Motte with attempted murder of a Marquis even if Adaline was on the table. There is no reason, with this position, that he could not have taken control of the law and manipulated Adaline anyways (because she had no idea who he was). Of course this would have made for a reasonably uninteresting and short story, but the idea is made.

Now we are getting to the point where the actions are more believable. There are many examples of this, lets start with Blanche. She has had a somewhat bad series of events in her life (some caused by herself) and we can see why she takes the manipulative actions that she does. This is also shown in the grandmother... The family is argumentative, and "normal". The elite-st grandmother is argumentative and annoying, and ends up actually getting shot by the muggers... as would happen in this tangible world.

Poquelin, A Rose for Emily, Old Gardiston

      Jean-ah Poquelin as well as A Rose for Emily, are very dissimilar but at the same time have many common elements.
      Poquelin is not really a story of wretched deeds by the main characters as many of these recent novels or short stories have been. When looking back into the recent stories, all of the main characters have something to hide and/or more serious problems do deal with. Poquelin is seen by the town as a crazy old character with an obsession with keeping his privacy in his old home. Many people start to make ridiculous accusations about the old man due to fear and/or suspension. As the story progresses, you realize that it was in fact the people of the town that were the "gothic stereotype". The main character is actually only trying to protect his brother that is now a leper. He knows that the town will ridicule and probably sentence him to death from fear. One could say that the town really does have justification in knowing that something is "off" about the house, but they have the conclusion based on the wrong reason.
      One has to wonder if the justification behind all of this is true. Even though the people are terrified of this disease throughout this time, it even shows up in the literature. This disease is currently still around, but humans are immune to this disease, but at the time, myth and fears were so high that people even began to believe that body parts and such would fall of with the disease... this is a myth that still exists today and shows the true petrification of the people at this time.