Reader Response To Zena Young On The Feather Pillow Analysis

First, the writings of her journal show that the narrator is not convinced with her “rest cure” treatment. Her writings depict that her husband, John, continuously belittles her condition and concerns while she knows that her illness is real and more severe than he

The turning point of the story is when the doctor started to act mean towards the little girl, and thinking to himself how he enjoyed it. The little girl knocking his glasses off and trying to claw at his eyes was probably the final straw for him. All he was trying to do was help her, and all she was doing was making it even more difficult. In my opinion I believe she was the reason he began to enjoy acting mean towards her, so his thoughts could have been and probably were a normal thought of someone who was trying to do their job, and just got stuck with a difficult patient.

When the readers meet the young, subordinated wife of a physician, who remains nameless throughout the entire story, perhaps hinting at the commonness of such situations where all those women are the same: faceless and nameless, this woman’s dilemma becomes obvious. She has been stripped off the only function a woman in those times had, the domestic one, due to the fact that she suffers from a mysterious illness which requires the infamous bed cure. Gradually, she is treated more and more as a child, unable and even forbidden to express herself in a creative way, namely to write, being persuaded that it cannot do any good to someone in her condition. This is why the protagonist (who is simultaneously the narrator), takes it upon herself to write a journal about her experiences and the mysterious woman that haunts her from the

Ann Wood Douglas suggests that a significant number of number in America during the early nineteenth century considered themselves ill. Many of these women, Douglas asserts, were self-diagnosed. However, these diagnoses were both encouraged and stimulated by the culture surrounding them. These women were not just sick, instead, they were sick because they were women. Their anatomy, specifically the uterus, was viewed as an inherently erratic and troubled organ that

Louisa May Alcott was an author who volunteered as nurse during the Civil War. While she was serving she sent out letters to her friends and family. These letters later became a book titled “Hospital Sketches”. In this excerpt of the book, Louisa tells of a patient she took care of named John. She describes him in detail, saying that he was physically and mentally very strong and was determined not to die. “He seemed to cling to life, as if it were rich in duties and delights.” However, John was severely injured with a punctured lung and broken ribs and the doctors said he wouldn’t survive. Louisa was devastated by this and was determined to make his last days as comfortable as possible. When John’s time finally came, she stayed by his side

Both women in the stories suffer from an illness, both physical and mental, an extent in both

            In order to treat this "temporary nervous depression," John isolates her from society and orders her to do nothing but rest.  He even becomes upset when she wishes to write, causing this story to be "composed" of writings she manages to do in secret.  John places her in the attic of the mansion, like a dirty secret, in what she believes to be a former nursery.  There is, however, strong evidence that the narrator is not the first mental patient to occupy the room.  There are bars on the windows, gouges in the floor and walls, and rings fastened to the walls; the bed is bolted down and has been gnawed on, and the wallpaper has been torn off in patches.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman examines the negative effects of the “rest cure”, a common approach used in the nineteenth century to treat women suffering from severe nervous symptoms (Bassuk 245). The text not only condemns the callous, medical treatment that the narrator endures, but, it also addresses the misogynistic beliefs and the resulting gender inequalities that endorse the use of such treatments. This theme is made explicit in the narrator’s persistent attempts to escape the authoritarian confinement, gender discrimination and marginalization of her mental illness imposed by her husband John, who is also her physician. The way in which male physicians treated women during this time period is challenged through the narrator’s lens as she struggles for freedom and for a life beyond the boundaries set by her husband.

Author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s semi-autobiographical short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, portrays how women were treated in the era before postpartum depression was understood by the medical profession. Jane, a new mother, and the protagonist, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” was married to a physician of “high standing” and was treated like a caged animal instead of a human being (Gilman 486). As the story begins, Jane, her husband and new baby are moved into a summer home, which she despised, so that she would have time to recuperate from a nervous condition. At the outset of “The Yellow Wallpaper” Jane suffered from depression and anxiety but as the story progressed so did her mental illness. During Gilman’s short story Jane is disregarded, oppressed, and confined by her husband; this leads to her complete mental breakdown at the story’s conclusion.

From the beginning of the story, the main character Charlotte, is claimed “ill” by her husband John, a sophisticated surgeon who felt qualified enough to help his wife’s sickness, for he had experience in the medical field. Although, no experience

As the story starts out, the reader is not sure if the narrator is really ill. The antagonist of the story is the narrator’s husband. Being a doctor, he has prescribed her to rest and not work until she is well. He controls her situation by secluding her in a colonial mansion away from the disturbances he sees as causing her illness. The portrayal of this man is related to how men treated women in the nineteenth-century. The oppression the narrator feels comes from her husband and the world around her. What gives this story “its impelling force is the way the author places the narrator’s voice within a world that denies her the ability to live by her own lights” (Horowitz, H. L. 2010. p. 177). An example of her husband’s demeaning ways would be when he refers to her as ‘my blessed little goose’ and ‘little girl’. Readers of the story can speculate that her husband uses her illness as a way to control her. Even though he has prescribed her rest, she still writes in secret until she can’t think anymore. Her madness takes

In the “Use of Force” story, the patient, Mathilda, was afraid that the doctor would find out what she had. Therefore, not allowing him to examine her. “She

The scene is a 19th century home; a man knocks on the door for his appointment. The door opens and standing there is the doctor in a stiff, dry, blood-covered smock. The man is there for surgery and the doctor leads him to his designated operating room. As the doctor sets the man down in the chair, the man sees the dry blood and sharp instruments. He starts to have second thoughts on the surgery and struggles to get away. Two of the doctor’s assistants hold him down as the doctor gives him a blow to the head to knock his patient out. The poor man screams in agony as he awakes from the doctor beginning his operation. Stories such as that one are now only distant memories of the past. This is all thanks to a drug called ether that renders

Miss Amelia was like the doctor of the town. If anyone wanted medicines she was the one to go to. It is said, “For unlocated sickness there were any number of different