Return to Course

Housekeeping: 

• Happy Pi Day
• Midterm grades have been posted (based on your work up to this point).  
• Do we need more reading quizzes? Based on the midterm evaluations, it seems that keeping up with the reading is the hardest part of this class. Unfortunately, I cannot cut back on reading in a literature class (it is something that accreditation boards will check). And I really cannot read it to you IN class - it needs to be done before class on your own. Would reading quizzes help you focus on reading and get it done? 
• Confusion about exams - material from the exams was often lifted DIRECTLY off the notes on the wiki.  

Agenda:

 Domestic Female Hero

During the nineteenth-century, women's writing rose like a tsunami, engulfing the literary world. Several male authors expressed perplexity and distress at the new competition these "scribbling women" posed. Later women writers would analyze the socioeconomic forces that propelled women into the literary marketplace, including the spread of public education (and literacy), the growth of the middle class, and the social acceptability of writing for profit among middle-class women. 

Traditional Domestic Heroine: American Cinderella Narratives

Louisa May Alcott's "Modern Cinderella: Of, The Little Old Shoe" from The Atlantic (ca 1870)

Group Work:

What expectations does this story set up for the domestic heroine? What is her heroic journey? When does she act? When do other people act? How does it compare with the traditional heroic journey we've been studying? 

The Revolt of Women

Charlotte Perkins Gilman embraced a life within the domestic sphere as a wife and mother until severe post-partum depression drove her to leave her family behind and seek work (and life) in the outside world. As a part of this change, Perkins traveled from the east coast to the west coast, where women were making notable strides in several fields at the turn of the century.

Group Work:

• What is the CONTEXT for "The Yellow Wallpaper"?
• Who are the characters? 
• How does Gilman's "The Yellow Wall Paper" respond to a woman's experience of life within the domestic sphere (as modeled in "A Modern Cinderella")? 
• What sort of LITERARY devices does Gilman get the reader into the mindset of the protagonist? 

The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf

If I Were a Man.pdf

Gilman wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" in an effort to explain her post-partum depression (and subsequent flight) to her husband and her doctor. Her doctor claimed that no one should read this short story because it might cause insanity, but after reading it, he never again prescribed the "rest cure" for women suffering from depression!

Group Work:

• How does "If I Were a Man" shift the argument that Gilman is making in "The Yellow Wallpaper"? 
• How is the heroine culpable in her own situation?
• How has society shaped these characters and determined their perspectives (and characters)?

Close Reading of the Power of Words

A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun or a group of words used as a noun. Pronouns are classified in five (5) different categories. They are personal pronouns, (intensive pronouns - a type of personal pronoun), relative pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, indefinite pronouns, and interrogative pronouns. Some pronouns can appear in more than one classification. The way in which a pronoun is classified depends on how it is used in a sentence. The first step in avoiding errors with pronouns is IDENTIFYING pronouns.

Today we’re going to look at the three main errors you typically encounter with pronouns by mapping the use of pronouns in a section of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and then looking at pronouns in your rough drafts. Gilman’s story is especially fun for this sort of exercise because she relies entirely on pronouns when discussing her nameless female protagonist.

For the exercise below, break into groups and identify the pronouns assigned to your group. Spend three minutes identifying as many pronouns as you possible (some types of pronouns are a lot harder to find than others).

• (Group One) Personal pronouns: replaces personal names.
• Subject pronouns (I, You, He, She, It, They, We) replace the name of the subject in the sentence. Example: Mrs. Yen did not come to school yesterday. She had to go to the doctor. "Mrs. Yen" is the subject and "she" is the subject pronoun.
• Intensive pronouns: myself, yourself, himself…
• Possessive pronouns: mine, his, hers, theirs... 
• (Group Two) Relative Pronouns: join dependent clauses to independent clauses. They are who, whose, whom, which, and that.
• (Group Three) Demonstrative Pronouns: pronouns that point out. They are this, that, these, and those.
• (Group Four) Indefinite Pronouns: pronouns that do not point out specifically. They point out generally. They include such words as another, any, anybody, anyone, anything, both, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, many, neither, nobody, none, no one, one, other, others, some, somebody, and someone.
• (Group Five) Interrogative Pronouns: ask questions. Who, whom, whose, which, and what are interrogative pronouns.

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures. John is a physician, and -- perhaps (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do? If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression -- a slight hysterical tendency -- what is one to do? My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing. So I take phosphates or phospites -- whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again.

Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do? I did write for a while in spite of them; but it doesexhaust me a good deal -- having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition. I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus -- but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.

 Mapping Pronouns Exercise:

Now, let’s spend five minutes and map the pronouns on YOUR first paragraph and looking at the three main errors that most people make with pronouns.

• (Group One and Two) Pronoun-antecedent agreement (singular vs. plural). Identify the pronoun, its antecedent and whether they are singular (S) or plural (P).
• Antecedent = the word a pronoun refers to or replaces. 
• For example, consider the sentence: John loves his baseball. 
• The proper name “John” is the ANTECEDENT for the possessive pronoun “his,” and they agree because they are both singular.
• A pronoun and its antecedent agree with they are both singular or both plural.

• (Group Three and Four) Pronoun reference (clarity). Draw a line connecting pronouns to all possible antecedents. If there is more than one or if a pronoun does not have any clear antecedents, you should clarify the sentence by using the specific noun.
• Ambiguous references occur when the pronoun could refer to two possible antecedents. 
• For example, consider the sentence: “When Aunt Harriet put the cake on the table, it collapsed.” 
• The pronoun “it” here could refer to either the noun “cake” or the noun “table.” That is why this is an ambiguous reference. It should either be reorganized or reworded for clarity.

• (Group Five) Pronoun case (I vs. me or who vs. whom)
• There are three cases of personal pronouns: subjective, objective, possessive (you can find a great list of these in your Pocket Style Manuel). These are pretty straight forward until you get to complex sentences. 
• For example, consider the sentence: When diving for pearls, Ikiko and her she found a sunken boat. 
• The pronoun "her" is possessive and the correct pronoun here is the subjective "she." The best way to figure this out is to strip away the extra stuff (When diving for pearls, Ikiki and...) and you'll realize "her found a sunken boat" doesn't sound right. 

The purpose of this exercise is CLARITY! Pronouns can become confusing because they are generic. Taking a minute to map your pronouns will help you make sure your READER can make the connections (if you can't follow your own map, your reader will not be able to either). 

Pronoun Power Trips: Finding MEANING through Grammar

Understanding pronouns is usually about CLARITY, but in "The Yellow Wallpaper," subtle shifts in the narrator's use of pronouns also indicate a shift in tone. Consider these two opening paragraphs. In the first paragraph, we see a range of personal pronouns, both first person and third person. In the first sentence, the narrator is the object of the sentence and her husband, John, is the subject. The narrator filters her ideas through the ideas of her husband and brother. In the second paragraph there is a notable shift to first person pronouns: "I" appears in ever sentence except one, where she questions what she can do. With the repetition of the pronoun "I," we get a sense of the narrator's independent will because the narrator is the subject of the sentence (not the object of other people's ideas).

• First person.
• Second person.
• Third person.

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures. John is a physician, and -- perhaps (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) perhaps that is one reason Ido not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do? If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression -- a slight hysterical tendency -- what is one to do? My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing. So I take phosphates or phospites -- whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to "work" until Iam well again.

Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do? I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal -- having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition. I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus -- but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. 

We could take this a step farther and compare the narrator's wobbly sense of self in the beginning of the story to her strong subjectivity at the end of the story (where the pronoun "I" is repeated emphatically). 

Go to "The Yellow Wallpaper"  

And for any history buffs in the audience - here's an ad describing the medicines (and attitude) that Gilman records in her story. 

Competing Narratives

Roosevelt "On Am Motherhood" 1905.pdf

If Gilman turns expectations for women in the domestic sphere on their head, how does Freeman's narrative find a middle ground between Gilman and Alcott? What does this say about shifting perceptions of the domestic sphere at the turn of the nineteenth century? How does Roosevelt fit into this spectrum of ideas on the meaning and significance of women in the domestic sphere?

Group Work:

• How would you write a story talking about the distinctive life experiences women have traditionally had within the home in America? What genre would you use? What would be your main point?