"The Yellow Wallpaper" Reaction

    The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is an ironically innocent title for a short story with such a dark plot. This narrative chronicles the mental deterioration of a woman, Jane, living in Victorian England. In line with the repressive undertone of the era, Jane's husband, John, restricts Jane in numerous ways to try to remedy her illness. But little does he know that his pressure only drives Jane further into madness. The climax of her collapsing mental state occurs when she is unified with the shadow of a woman she sees in the wallpaper covering her room. This ominous phenomenon has been the object of much debate among literary critics and scholars.
    This event, I believe, is the ultimate result of Jane's loneliness. To recover from her mental sickness she was prescribed extended stay in this bedroom, devoid of human interaction and physical activity. Early on in the story, Jane comments, "I don't like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! But John would not hear of it" (Gilman 2). In her forced isolation, Jane spends days on end tracing the patterns in the ugly wallpaper, trying to reach some sort of conclusion in her otherwise fruitless life. The shadow of the woman largely symbolizes the failure of this medical treatment. What was meant to cure Jane of her mental pain only drove her deeper into instability. Jane copes with the lack of the human experience by mentally inhabiting the personality of the silhouette in the wall. While I don't agree with the notion that Jane literally assumed the form of this shadow, it's certainly true that Jane thought so. Readers must remember that the narrative is told from Jane's point of view. Whatever we read in the text is shaped by her mental state; we interact with the plot through Jane's eyes. When Jane claims she became the shadow in the wall, the real Jane is still lying in bed trying her best to make sense of her situation with insufficient mental capabilities.

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. N.p., n.d. United States Library of Medicine. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.

Gothic for You, Not for Me

     Instinctively, humans tend to associate danger with the unknown. At first, most outsiders would be cautious of the jungles, traditions, and people of Africa. But for those who were raised in this environment, such cultural elements only form the backdrop of everyday life. Many students and scholars appreciate Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as a work that adheres to gothic conventions. In doing so, however, we lose sight of the adventure - one man's foray into the unknown. We follow Marlow every step into the Congo and we classify his experiences as horrific and eerie, rather than accept the cultural differences that separate us from the Africans. In the end, the elements that we perceive to be gothic are simply byproducts of our Western interpretation of this novel.

     No scene better illustrates culture shock than when Marlow observes a fence near Kurtz's residence. At first, he thinks the fence is simply decorated with ornaments. When he realizes what he is actually seeing, Marlow thinks, "They would have been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house. Only one, the first I had made out, was facing my way" (Conrad 112). As readers, we are simply repulsed by this sort of image, so we are comfortable calling it a gothic feature. Along with Marlow, readers are scared because decapitated heads are considered grotesque in our culture. However, preserving the heads of the dead is a symbolic practice of the local Congolese. This, of course, calls into question the objective nature of gothicism. In Western tradition, decapitation qualifies as gothic, yet in tribal Congolese tradition, this practice is commonplace. Thus, as cultural rules would dictate, gothicism rests in the eye of the beholder.

Works Cited

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness.NY,NY: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1988.   

Flower Power

            Published in 1847, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë stoked the flames of feminism in an age of female repression. Disgusted by the distinct gender roles espoused by Victorian England, Brontë sought to create a female character that largely transcended the Victorian ideals of women. Fierce, independent, and multi-faceted, Jane Eyre was the protagonist eventually born of this vision.

            Jane Eyre chronicles Jane’s struggle to gain autonomy in a society that disenfranchises women. Brontë’s feminist agenda is most apparent when Jane returns to Rochester at the end of the novel. Jane learns that Thornfield Hall was burned down and Rochester was blinded and crippled the process. Finding him at Ferndean nearby, Jane vows to Rochester that she will never leave him again.

            Jane’s newfound relationship with Rochester is unique because he depends on her for help. Considering the man typically supported the woman in Victorian culture, Jane subverts gender roles by taking care of Rochester. As Jane remarks, “No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh” (Brontë 457). Brontë therefore blinds and cripples Rochester to set him on equal footing with Jane, which confirms Brontë’s intent to illustrate a non-traditional woman.
            Brontë’s choice to cripple Rochester is a good one, because his disabilities mitigate the commonplace male/female dynamic that the couple would have experienced otherwise. If the goal of the novel was to advance the notion of female power, then Brontë’s decision was a sound one.

Works Cited

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Hazleton: Electronic Classics Series, 2003. Penn State University. Web. 20 February 2015.

Satan: the Dantean vs. the Miltonian

The name Satan often evokes images of an all-powerful devil that condemns sinners to the worst of punishments. This notion of Satan is one that pervades television, film, and most literature. Indeed, this is the Satan that is espoused by John Milton in Paradise Lost. At the outset of the novel, this fallen angel explains that it is “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven” (Milton I. 263). Milton’s devil professes that hell is his domain and that he is no longer the servant he was in heaven.

Perhaps the most famous deviant from this popular conception of Satan is the one in Dante’s Inferno. In Dante’s hell, Satan is portrayed as a massive demon frozen in the deepest part of Cocytus. In this hell, Satan is not all-powerful; instead, he is but another sinner. Unlike Milton’s, Dante’s Lucifer does not rule the kingdom of but is one of its many subjects.

Another striking difference between these two versions of Satan is that Dante’s Satan does not speak. Unless we consider Dante’s veneration of language, this characteristic may seem simply aesthetic. Through The Divine Comedy, to which the Inferno belongs, Dante glorifies language in many ways. Dante thus asserts his moral code by stripping away the linguistic faculties from the worst sinners. Those souls frozen in Cocytus (those who cannot speak) receive the worst punishment according to Dante’s philosophy. In contrast, Milton’s Satan is extremely vocal. His speech, “Is this the region…lost in Hell?” clearly establishes this fact (Milton I 242-270). When compared to Dante’s Satan, such a behavioral difference indicates varied motives of the authors.

Fundamental Christian history posits that Lucifer was once the servant of God, but eventually tried to usurp his power, which brought him condemnation to hell. Dante criticizes this betrayal of God by situating Dante amongst the sinners; he is placed in the circle of treachery. Though Milton is aware this betrayal, he emphasizes Satan’s ultimate desire for power by illustrating him as the ruler of hell as opposed to a sinner. Either way, both authors offer a compelling image of Satan and do so within exceptional narratives, which is why both the Inferno and Paradise Lost have earned a place in the Western canon.

Works Cited

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. New York: Norton, 1975. Print.

The Tempest: An Experiment in Mixed Conventions

           When delving into classic, Western literature, it is often comforting to group the works we read under broad labels. Doing so ensures a sense of distinction between works of different cultural movements and stylistic elements. Of course, the scholarly community has the most influence when it comes to categorizing such precious literature. In the case of classifying William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, critics are entangled in a four-rope tug-of-war pulling in the directions of classical tragedy, medieval tragedy, renaissance tragedy, and romance. While most of the evidence would point to The Tempest as being a romantic work, to cast aside the presence of classical tragedy in this play for a single, clear label is to ignore the driving force that initiated the plot.

            Perhaps the most striking element that Shakespeare borrows from classical tragedy in this play is the tragic flaw. The one error that ultimately causes a character’s collapse, the tragic flaw in The Tempest takes the form of selfishness. Prospero, the protagonist of the story, is guilty of this flaw. When recounting his past to Miranda, Prospero recollects, “The government I cast upon my brother / And to my state grew stranger, being transported / And rapt in secret studies” (Act I, Scene II). When he was the Duke of Milan, he lost interest in his responsibilities as the duke in favor of practicing his magical powers, his “secret studies.” During this time, his brother Antonio, in concert with Alonso, overtake the dukedom. Prospero exhibits selfishness by neglecting his role as a leader and instead indulging in his own passion for magic. Eventually, this self-indulgence catches up to him and he loses his position of power entirely.

            Although the romantic tragedy might serve as the dominant organizing principle, the story’s plot ultimately derives from the fact that Prospero had a tragic flaw that resulted in his exile. Observing this play through just a romantic lens blinds us to this truth because typically “In tragedies, characters are destroyed as a result of their own actions and choices; in Romance, characters respond to situations and events rather than provoking them” (Schwartz). Conventionally speaking, the tragic flaw is an element that does not pertain to Romance. Therefore, we can accept that Prospero’s tragic flaw exists only when we recognize the coexistence of romantic tragedy and classic tragedy within this play.

Works Cited

Schwartz, Debora B. "Romance (Tragi-comedy)." California Polytechnic State University, n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2015.

Shakespeare, William. N.p.: n.p., n.d. The Tempest. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Web. 12 Jan. 2015.

How the Rise of Geopolitics Invalidates Huxley's Fears of the Future

           Unlike fine wine, it seems, Aldous Huxley’s analysis does not improve with age. Or stay valid for that matter. His 1958 book Brave New World Revisited details how the very fantasies he described in Brave New World are materializing much faster than expected. The rise of totalitarian regimes around the world coupled with new advances in technology created an environment conducive to the tyrannical future Huxley outlined in his groundbreaking novel. While the world Huxley lived in was a very fair comparison to the future he predicted in Brave New World, the current international system does not permit the political hypotheses he puts forth in his book.

            In Brave New World Revisited, Huxley explains that one of the leading factors of the Brave New World complex is immense overpopulation. As it is, the birth rate is generally more difficult to control than the death rate, as birth control depends on the will of the people whereas death control depends on the will of the government. As our world population grows quicker than it dies out, we face incremental increases in population size. In underdeveloped countries, oversized populations place considerable strain on an already beleaguered pool of economic resources – land, labor, and capital. Thus, the government must intervene more in order to allocate these stretched out resources and provide for the welfare of their people. Huxley fears larger populations will create the need for larger governments to the extent that they become totalitarian.

            What does this mean for first world countries where economic resources are abundant? As Huxley posits, “If over-population should drive the underdeveloped countries into totalitarianism, and if these new dictatorships should ally themselves with Russia, then the military position of the United States would become less secure and the preparations for defense and retaliation would have to be intensified” (Huxley 11). Hostility and global aggression at this scale will force the US, along with the rest of the West, into totalitarianism. Perhaps staggering insight in the 1950s, this claim contains massive untruths in 2014. Of course, the blame lies not on Huxley for he could not have foreseen today’s international political landscape the way it is. But the greatest error in Brave New World Revisited is that it overestimates the scope of Russian aggression. With new industrial powers in play today and a plethora of new countries, Russian aggression would not be directed at the United States but at its closest neighbors – bordering countries.

            The dissolution of the Soviet Union occurred in the early 90s and Chinese industrialization took hold in the 70s. As autonomous states, China and former Soviet nations would be the primary obstacles to a Russian campaign of aggression. Although these countries were not barriers to Russian influence in Huxley’s time, political realities have shifted.  In fact, no other country better speaks to the current extent of Russian aggression than Ukraine, who is currently grappling for autonomy from Russia. So, long before the country could even attempt to elicit a response from the West, Russia would have to deal with its borders, allowing plenty of time for the USA and our European allies to build up defenses and resist the very wave of totalitarianism that Huxley cautions against.

            Once again, Huxley is certainly not at fault for the non-universality of his writing, for international politics is always fluctuating. While the Brave New World future itself seems more and more doubtful, the quality of the novel remains one of the best in its genre.

Works Cited

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World Revisited. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958. Print. 

Style Challenge

            Weeping girls; scared women, blonde, brown-haired, and curled; shiny knights; wealthy men and proletariats; all from the palace, all from vending fruit, from sweeping the streets with the carelessness born of boredom, and rushed to the perimeter of the kingdom to relinquish their sadness, if they could. The weather was dreadful, the air suffocating, the humidity thick as if an ocean inhabited at the atmosphere. Perspiring, marching with haste, gossiping about the fate of a doomed neighbor, the villagers and the knights descended upon the great barrier that separates their great kingdom from the sprawling countryside, a region ripe with thieves, crazed wanderers, and despicable beasts. Oh how exciting was the scene, oh how depressing was the scene; the setting sun seemed full of hope, the setting sun seemed full of dread; the pathway to the lost friend was paved with happiness ever after, was paved with sadness ever after. Now, now, now was the time to act.

            In a frenzy of motion all the village men acquired their supplies and their composure (the ladies fetched pails of water and food for it was going to be a long day at the edge of town). The knights burst through the crowd with their ladders, and, riding their horses, they approached the immense brick wall that separated their humble kingdom from the chaotic wilderness that surrounded them. One by one, the knights lined up to the wall and linked their ladders together using the hardware supplied to them by the generous village men. Each man whispered words of encouragement and hope to the other; they were determined to rescue their poor, lost king from the top of the wall.

            King Hubert was a unique personality; frizzy, unkempt, black hair; eggshell white skin; bright blue eyes and dark pupils. What a man he was in his youth, always concerned for the welfare and happiness of subjects, always the best in the practice of diplomacy. But then his sons died in battle. Oh he could not bear their loss; the poor man went mad months after and periodically wound up in the strangest of places, like today, he sat mysteriously atop the outer brick wall of the kingdom.

            Frantically, the knights tried to scale the immense barrier that currently served throne to their deranged leader. Shouting words of hope, the knights exclaimed that they would be up soon, that he need not worry, and that he must absolutely not leap from the towering wall. But those words fell silent to the ears of the king who sat and stared at the horizon dreaming of his boys who lay asleep, cradled in the arms of angels. Ignoring the pleas and the cries of the knights and the village men and the village ladies, the king jumped from the wall and hurtled toward the ground below. Smashed and dull, his golden crown drifted in the pool of blood that formed at the feet of a most saddened, heavy-hearted people.