"Social Freedom.... or lack thereof"

  RESPONSES

  Anne Bradstreet's first poem: The Author to Her Book discusses her feelings about being a mother, and having her child taken away from her. I think that she uses a human child as symbolism for her literary work (so I will use "work" as reference to her "child") Her work was taken from her and shown off to the world, but in a way that Bradstreet felt was degrading; "Who thee exposed to public view, made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge". The work was not presented in the best light an judged harshly. When her work was returned to her, Bradstreet was ashamed and tried her best to correct and improve upon her work, but to no avail (in her opinion): "Yet being mine own, at length affection would they blemishes amend, if so I could". To me, it seems that Bradstreet's work was published without her knowledge, or at least her consent. Her second poem: Prologue is about the difficulties for women in literature. She begins her poem by acknowledging great acts in history: "to sing of wars, of captains, and kings...", but also notes that she feels her "mean pen" are inferior to these things. This poem suggests that Bradstreet feels she is not taken seriously as she would have been had she been a man. She is criticized for pursuing her passion of poetry: "I am obnoxious to each carping tongue, who says my hand a needle better fits". I feel like Bradstreet felt she didn't have a lot of freedom in expressing herself, and felt that she would not be given full credit of her accomplishments. This is evident in the line: "Yet grant some acknowledgement of ours". The last poem I read was: To my Dear and Loving Husband". In this poem Bradstreet talks about her sincere love for her husband: "I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold". That seems like a lot of love to me. Although I do not doubt the love Bradstreet had for her husband, I do feel that she had some resentment because of the role she was expected to play as wife of a prominent man in their Puritan community. Bradstreet did not achieve the social freedom that she longed for, but I do believe that as wife of the future governor, she had more freedoms than other women in the colony. With this small amount of social freedom, Bradstreet was able to convey her feelings through her poems.


  The second text I read for today's post was "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving. I read this story my senior year in high school and it was nice to revisit it. This story exhibits the main character dealing with social freedoms, however, in this care it is a man. Rip Van Winkle wanted to escape the domestic life and the nagging of his wife: "... Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible". In this story, Rip escapes the pressures of family life by either talking at the local inn with his friends, or hunting squirrels with his dog, Wolf, in the mountains. On one of these particular outings, Rip spots a mountain dweller and helps him carry a large keg. Upon reaching the traveler's destination, Rip drinks out of the keg then falls in to a deep slumber. When he awakes, he does not recognize his surroundings and when he returns to his village he does not recognize any of the villagers. After many questions, Rip finds out he has been asleep for 20 years! To me, Rip does not seem to down about this: he learns that his wife has died (who was his main source of contempt). Before his identity is confirmed, Rip just wants to be recognized and remembered, he was hurt that his own dog did not remember him: " 'My very dog,' sighed poor Rip, 'has forgotten me!' ". Fortunately, Rip's daughter still lives in the village and takes him in. Now in old age, Rip is able to return to his lackadaisical life style without any complaints.


  The last text I read was, The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This was a very interesting story indeed. I read it as diary entries by the main character. The story starts off and it is evident that the main character is sick: "You see he does not believe I am sick!". She is married to a prominent physician and her brother is a doctor as well. Neither one of them believes she is truly sick. To me, this represents the times that these characters lived in. The women are submissive to their husbands, and abide by their beliefs and rules. However, in her writings, she expresses her differing views and her growing discomfort in their summer home. In particular, she hates the bedroom her husband chose: "No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long". The main focus of the story is her issue with the yellow wallpaper in the room. As I continued reading this story, it became more evident to me that she was more mentally sick than physically sick. She tries to hide her contempt with the wallpaper so that her husband won't worry about her condition: It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weakness I suppose". She does try to talk with her husband about leaving the room, but he feels she should simply get more sleep. This story exemplifies the lack of social freedom women had during these times. As a doctor, her husband had even more stature and his opinion always overrode hers. The other issue holding the main character back from being free is the room itself. She believe the wallpaper is moving and spends the greater portion of her time trying to figure out it's "secrets". At the end of the story she finally is able to "escape": " 'I've got out at last,' said I, 'in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!' ".

QUESTIONS

Here are a few questions I had from today's readings:

1. Did Anne Bradstreet's position as wife of the future governor hurt or help her passion for poetry?
2. Did Anne Bradstreet, truly love her husband, or did she feel it was her "duty" to love her husband?
3. Did the mountain dwellers know of Rip Van Winkle's home life? Why did they choose that particular day to appear?
4. Why did the main character's husband in The Yellow Wallpaper ignore her deteriorating condition? Was it not obvious to him that she was not getting better?
5. If her husband had moved her to another room, would she still feel trapped as she did in the room with the yellow wallpaper? (The Yellow Wallpaper)

CONNECTIONS

Here are a few CONNECTIONS I applied from the readings:

• The theme of today's readings was "social freedom". All of the characters in today's readings dealt with some type of social hinderance. The works were very evident of the time they were written. However, I have seen these same type of injustices in the news in Middle Eastern countries. For example, in some Middle Eastern countries the women have no social freedoms and their daily lives are dictated by the men in their lives. 
• I also noticed a theme of "mental illness" in The Yellow Wallpaper. In today's society those with mental illnesses are usually diagnosed and undergo treatment. However, just like in this story, sometimes those suffering from mental illness are not believed or simply ignored. Especially in women. I recently read a story of a mother who killed her children, and many question arose such as: Why? Could this have been avoided? Did the mother not exhibit signs of depression before?