Assignment task:
Please help me with these Paragraphs
Paragraph 1: For your first paragraph, please answer the following prompt/supplemental questions:
Please do some quick research on neurasthenia and melancholia, explaining your findings in a few sentences. How does this relate to the story?
The wallpaper is, as the title suggests, the chief symbol in this story. What does it symbolize, and how does it work as a symbol? What details about the wallpaper seem significant? How does the narrator's attitude toward and vision of the wallpaper change, and what is the significance of those changes?
In what ways does the conflict explored in this story seem dated? In what ways does it seem relevant to today's world?
Ensure you have read Chapter 6, "Symbolism & Figurative Language," then go back to "The Yellow Wallpaper" and:
Annotate (jot down notes) below, noting other aspects of setting besides the wallpaper that seem to be symbols. What do you think they symbolize and how do they contribute to the intensification and/or resolution of the central conflict?
Paragraph 2: The second paragraph is based on your thoughts and opinion of the piece. I ask that you be honest and thorough in your responses, explaining and expanding on your answers. When reflecting, think of the guiding questions I post as part of the Fiction Unit - Elements List.docx. In addition, I want you to think about and respond to these questions that specifically pertain to the story. It will help your peers generate responses as well.
What do you make of the ending of the story? Does the narrator seem to have been utterly defeated, or is there any way of seeing her as triumphant?
What did you think of Gilman's response/explanation to her work, "Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper"? Did it change your perspective on the piece at all or offer any new insight or understanding of Gilman or mental illness?