"The Yellow Wallpaper" & "A Jury of Her Peers"

"The Yellow Wallpaper" and "A Jury of Her Peers" are both more modern Gothic short stories that represent the struggles of women in a patriarchal society.  They are much more developed than earlier stories and provide rich descriptions and remind me more of novels that I would read today.  "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a first person narrative that describes her life and her "rest-cure" isolation.  She seems to be going through a depression and as the story goes on, she continually loses her mind and becomes more and more insane.  Her husband, treats her like a child and shuts her up in a room, only to let her out at certain times in the day.  He treats her like a child, as he says "bless her little heart" and "what is it, little girl?" In the end, she ends up crawling over his body, demonstrating her child-like state.  She also starts to see things in the wallpaper.  At  first, she just sees the design, but she then begins to think there is somebody inside the wallpaper trying to get out, which probably represents herself.  The story employs a few traditional Gothic elements, such as the unreliable narrator and the motif of entrapment.  Since the author is losing her mind and her thoughts are changing as the story goes on, she can be considered an unreliable narrator.  The author uses a stream of conscious narration to develop the characters fall into madness.  The wife also feels entrapped, making the reader wonder if they are in some kind of home or a mental institution.  For example, the bed is nailed down, there are bars on the door, and the door is locked.  All these things demonstrate women's entrapment in the home and there loss of power over males.

"A Jury of Her Peers" dealt with similar issues of female submission, but it really discussed the differences between males and females and how they interact.  Ms. Wright is accused of killing her husband, who has an abusive and mean man.  Ms. Hale and Ms. Peters both go with their husbands to look through the house for clues of the death of Mr. Wright.  The house represents Ms. Wright's decline as it is dirty, with everything half done or all over the place.  The men immediately submit her behavior to questioning, but the women try to make the men understand how hard it is to keep a house tidy and in order.  Throughout the whole story, the men continually make judgments and the women try to protect Ms. Wright from there questioning.  For instance, the women stitch the entire piece of clothing because the stitching was not even, possibly representing Ms. Wright's downturn into insanity.  In addition, the women look inside Ms. Wright's "pretty jewelry box" and find a dead bird with its neck broken.  The women know how much the bird meant to Ms. Wright and decide to hide the bird from the men and withhold the evidence.  The story basically shows that men and women sometimes do not understand each other and their situations.  The women side with Ms. Wright because they understand what she had to go through underneath her husband and rationalize her reason for killing her husband.  The men, on the other hand, do not pick up on the clues the women see, showing that the two sexes have a long way to go before they will really understand their interior motives and what makes them tick.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" & "Where are you Going, Where have you Been?"

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O' Connor and "Where are you Going, Where have you Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates were both modern and disturbing reads compared to other works we have read this semester.  I wasn't quite ready for the shocking endings.  Both novels are part of the "devil" Gothic series, where the Misfit and Arnold are both described with demonic characteristics.  "A Good Man is Hard to Find" has a family on its way to Florida, but on the way, they take a side trip to an old plantation.  However, the grandmother remembers it is in another state, so she accidentally lets the cat out of her basket, which causes Bailey to crash the car.  The Misfit, with his two boys, Hiram and Bobby Lee, end up killing all of the family and then the Misfit shoots the grandmother three times.  "Where are you Going, Where have you Been?" deals with a teenager, who wants to be an adult.  She dresses up and puts on lots of make-up and ends up having sex in an alley with this boy Eddie that she meets at a diner.  However, her world is turned upside down, when Arnold, a "DJ" from a local radio station, comes to her house.  He is very aggressive and assertive and ends up taking Connie out of house where it is foreshadowed that she will be raped and buried in the open land.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" has some of the traditional Gothic elements.  For instance, the grandmother can be characterized as the "old spinster."  She is stuck in the past, wearing her dress and hat, because if she dies, she wants people to know "she is a lady."  She believes that refinement and manners can save her soul, but unfortunately that doesn't save her in the end.  It is love and faith that save the soul according to O' Connor, which the grandmother satisfies when she counts the Misfit as one of her children.  The issue of race is also prevalent in the story, as the blacks are demoralized, demonstrating that racism is still an issue that must be overcome. The Misfit represents the incarnation of the devil, as he has "no pleasure but meanness" and believes that Jesus resurrecting the dead has led to an imbalance in the world, which can only be solved by killing.  Last, O' Connor uses foreshadowing as one of her main elements in her stories.  In this story, when the grandmother says she wants to "die a lady" if they are killed, it is foreshadowing the family's encounter with the Misfit. 

"Where are you Going, Where have you Been?" doesn't have many of the traditional Gothic elements.  It can be considered modern Gothic, and it focuses on the issue of independence, innocence vs. adulthood and fantasy vs. reality.  Connie is focused on gaining her independence from her family.  She creates an image of a young adult, even though she is just a teenager.  She craves the idea of being an adult and experiencing sex, but still attempts to keep an air of innocence about her.  This mainly revolves around the idea of fantasy vs. reality.  She seems like she is a mature women who is experienced with men, but her encounter with Arnold shows that it is just a performance.  The love and romance in the songs she listens to and her appearance makes her believe that her fantasy of adult sexuality is actually the same as reality.  However, her encounter with Arnold definitely shatters this notion and the way she views the world.  Arnold himself also seems sub-human, which means that he could be a representation of the devil.  His pale skin, over sized shoes, and persona makes it seem like he is something from a fantasy.  Overall, it seems like Connie's quest for independence with lead to an ominous outcome, rape and buried in the "open land."

"Jean-ah Poquelin" & "A Rose of Emily"

"Jean-ah Poquelin" and "A Rose for Emily" are two similar short southern Gothic novels that focus on the disparity between the North and the South after the Civil War.  The North comes in and tries to change the stubborn South.  "Jean-ah Poquelin" is set in the time just after the Louisiana Purchase, where the Creoles are dealing with the changes the Americans are making.  Jean is a slave trader and is considered a hermit and chivalrous.  He is described with military adjectives, just like his house, which is savage and tough.  However, he must deal with the new, American ways, where aristocracy has no bearing on society.  Eminent domain causes him to eventually lose part of his property.  Jean represents the Creoles and the South in general, who are resistant to change, and keep upholding traditions.  Americans and the North on the other hand, represent change and progress, and the two obviously conflict.

"A Rose for Emily" also deals with the old vs. new, North vs. South theme as she does not listen to the new rules established, but instead dwells on the past.  Time is a large part of the story and it is completely scrambled.  At one point, we hear that there is a terrible smell of decay coming from the house, but we have no idea why.  It is not until the end, that we find out she killed Homer, he lover from the North, and his body has been decaying in the house for days.  This idea of time being scrambled can be representative of the South's denial of time. They continue to try to live in the past, and cannot comprehend the new life they must embark on after the Civil War without slaves.  Another theme in the short story that is prevalent throughout Southern Gothic literature is the tragic heroine/old spinster character.  Emily is the old spinster, who is the last in her line and represents her house, an old relic of the past.  She cannot come to grips with the changes occurring in society, just as the South couldn't come to grips with the changes the North was causing.  Overall, I thought the two stories were very good, and a much easier read than The Goophered Grapevine.