This is why I am not an artist…..

I just finished the second half of, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and I decided to give the “Sketching My Way Through the Text” strategy a shot. Daniels and Zemelman explained that this strategy is extremely effective and allows the reader to expand their knowledge. I am by NO means an artist, so I was skeptical but figured it would be a good opportunity to test out this strategy. (Seriously, I can’t even draw a straight line with a ruler)

So here is my first page of sketching

 

I wasn’t quite sure where to start with these sketches, so I just tried to draw (not very well….) what I saw in my mind as I was reading. The first sketch was after the narrator explained that she only truly showed her emotions, and cried when she was in the room by herself. She especially held in her emotions when her husband, John, was around. 

The next sketch is how I envisioned the wallpaper in her room to look. She describes that she sees a woman creeping in the corner of the pattern, so I thought that she would have been 

intertwined with the pattern on the wall. After I completed my reading, I was doing some research on the story and found this image. Although this isn’t how I pictured the woman within the wallpaper to look, I enjoyed looking through other images and seeing how other people interpreted the wallpaper to look. 

My next drawing is just an image of two stick figures, one being the narrator and the other being John. After reading about their interactions, I kept on picturing the narrator as being controlled by John. He seemed to hold her at a very low standard, and belittle her in many scenes. At one point in the story he refers to her as “little girl” (679). Between his language towards his wife, the way he treats her, and the way she almost seems to fear him, I realized the power struggle in their relationship that seemed more like a father/daughter relationship than a husband/wife. All of these reasons are why I drew the stick figure of the narrator to be much smaller than the one of John. 

Here is a picture of my next set of sketches. I decided not to include 2 of the sketches, because I didn’t want to give away too much of the story… but it was a sketch and a little chart about a realization I came to about the story. The first sketch is of a nose, because the narrator says that after they have had so much rain and fog that the smell of the wallpaper is much more pungent. This struck me because she goes on and on about the smell, how it travels through the house, gets stuck in her hair. She describes it as “…a yellow smell” (682). This was very strange to me, especially when she says initially that the smell was tempting her to burn the house so she would not have to smell it anymore, but that it doesn’t bother her anymore. My final sketch that I will include in this post is of women behind bars. The narrator talks about the woman in the wallpaper, and how when the light hits the paper a certain way that it looks like she is behind bars (which I pictured to be like a jail cell). Later on, she talks about how sometimes it looks like there are many women behind the bars. I found it interesting and questioned where these other women came from, which is why I chose to sketch this out to try to help myself see it better and understand the meaning behind it. 

I have to say, even though I am not an artist (by any stretch!) and I was unsure about this strategy, I am glad that I gave it a try. Usually, as I mentioned in my first blog post about this story, I read with a pen in my hand so that I can take notes in the margins, underline quotes and write down questions. It was difficult at first to put my pen to the blank sheet of paper and actually draw what I would have normally written down. I do think that the strategy was helpful, and it allowed me to look back at my drawings after I completed the text and actually SEE what I was imagining during my first reading. This was definitely useful, especially with a text that was as complicated as this one. I don’t know that I will use the sketching strategy all of the time, but I am sure I will use it once in a while, and I definitely will be bringing it into the classroom once I am teaching. 

                                                                    

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story that was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892. This text is considered to be an early piece of feminist literature, and touches on the subject of the mental health of women.

From being trained in my days as an English literature major when I was an undergraduate, I usually read with a pen in my hand. When I started reading, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, I found myself immediately writing questions in the margins. The story opens up with the narrator explaining that her husband is a highly respected physician, who does not believe that she is actually ill. Her brother, who is also a physician, agrees that his sister is just suffering from “temporary nervous depression” (674). This immediately had my mind running with questions, some being:

                -What kind of physicians are the narrator’s husband and brother?

                -Are they qualified to be diagnosing her with an emotional disorder?

The footnotes in my copy of this text explain that temporary nervous depression is an emotional problem that women were diagnosed with, that stems from anxiety or depression. Nervous women were classified as “hysterical”. 

As I continued reading the story, the narrator explains that she disagrees with her diagnosis, and that since she cannot work she likes to write, but that it exhausts her and she has to hide it from her husband, John. As a change of topic, she begins to describe her house that she lives in, which she says is, “the most beautiful place!” (674). As the house is being described, I am able to envision it perfectly… I can see the giant hedges and gates that enclose the property, which I imagine to be tremendous due to the multiple little houses that are for gardeners and such. The garden is described as somewhere magical, but then I learn that there also used to be greenhouses on the property, but now they are broken. After this, the narrator says, “…there is something strange about the house- I can feel it” (674).

Knowing the little bit of information that I know about the narrator at this point, I begin to question what she is saying about a “strangeness” in the house… are her accusations actually reliable being that she is diagnosed with hysteria? Maybe they are, but at this point I really cannot tell. Using different context clues from the text, I am leaning towards my initial thought that the narrator is unreliable. At one point she says that she finds herself getting “unreasonably” mad at her husband; I underlined this line while I was reading. When I went back to it after I first read it, this line stuck out to me because it is not someone else making this accusation, the narrator is saying it about herself.

As the narrator describes the room her husband has her spend her time in, I learn it served as s nursery, a playroom and a gymnasium before she was living there. The room is explained as having chipped paint and patches of hideous wallpaper adorning the walls. As the narrator continues on, I can picture the wallpaper in my head… 

“The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others. No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long.” (675).

As much as the narrator seems to despise this wallpaper, later on in the story (after about two weeks of living in the room) she says that she is beginning to develop a true liking for the room, but cannot decide if it is in spite of the yellow paper or because of it. She now uses the wallpaper to entertain herself, she spends hours upon hours following the design of the pattern to see where it leads to. 

The vivid descriptions throughout the text so far really allow me to feel like I can picture the room that the narrator is living in. I continue questioning if her fascination with the wallpaper is stemmed from her boredom, or if it has to do with her diagnosis. I also am still unsure of the reliability of the narrator, and hope that in the latter half of the story that I will be able to draw concrete conclusions about this. 

 

                

“If She Only Knew Me”

I received the following poem from a professor I have this semester. I couldn’t help but share it, it really touched me. It is from the perspective of a 9 year old student, and I think that everyone in the education field or working with children should take the time to read it over…

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“If She Only Knew Me” -Jeff Gray and Heather Thomas

If she only knew… If she only knew that I had to get my little brother up and ready for school this morning, she wouldn’t have fussed at me for being a few minutes late.

If she only knew…If she only knew that I didn’t get to eat supper last night, she wouldn’t have taken the extra cereal that Chris gave me at breakfast.  She said, “Only one cereal for each student.  That’s the rule at this school.

If she only knew…If she only knew that I had to watch my little brother last night while momma was at the park with her friends, she wouldn’t have punished me for not getting my homework done.

If she only knew…If she only knew that I like to make stuff during science class, she would let us make rockets like Mrs. Bagen’s class. Instead, we read about rockets from a book.

If she only knew…If she only knew that her rules are as long as the lines at the city pool, she would make a shorter list that we could remember.

If she only knew… If she only knew that my daddy left me and momma when I was two, she would stop telling me that she’s going to call my daddy for a conference.

If she only knew… If she only knew that I get really upset when Leonard talks about my momma, her biggest rule would be, “No talking about other people’s mommas.”

If she only knew…If she only knew how much I love to draw, she would  make me the class poster maker.  Instead, she doesn’t let me because my handwriting isn’t so great.

If she only knew…If she only knew that I need to talk if I’m going to learn, she wouldn’t send me to the principal’s office so much.  She says my talking is disruptive in the classroom.  She’s the only person talking. In my opinion, that’s a disruption.

If she only knew…If she only knew that when she gets mad and screams at the class it scares me. Last year, Mrs. Stewley never raised her voice at me.  Mrs. Stewley was as quiet as a crook after midnight. When Mrs. Stewley talked, kids listened.

If she only knew… If she only knew that some of the boys are trying to get me to join their gang, she would help me say, “No.”

If she only knew…If she only knew how much I like to run, she would have told me about last week’s track team sign-up.

If she only knew… If she only knew how much I need my mentor here at school, she would let me see him more. He thinks I’m cool.

If she only knew that I know stuff that she doesn’t know. I know where to get bus tokens.I know the best place to buy a pop. I know what time the sprinkler comes on at the park. I know what it means to get “dissed.” I know how to live without electricity. I know how to entertain an entire room of people with my personality and humor.I know what churches have the best rummage sales. I know how to stay safe in my neighborhood. I know how to keep my clothes from being stolen at the laundromat.

I know a lot more than she thinks I do…