The Yellow wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman  (1860-1935)

She was a utopian feminist, writer, lecturer and humanist.

In her writing she often dealt with topics of women and their lives around the turn of the century

Focusing on the oppresive forces of patriarchal society that kept women in their homes.

After her child was born she suffered a severe

post-partum depression.

"There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver."

Let's explore some of those ideas

Utopia - "a place that does not exist". An imagined place where things will be better.

Feminist - someone who supports

equal rights for women.

Patriarchy -a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.

The Yellow wallpaper  

A short story, regarded as an important early work of feminist literature, that shows the attitudes towards women´s mental and physical health of its time.

Themes that we will explore

Work vs. idleness

Mental health

Male control

Insanity/depression

How can we intepret the narrator's

situation in different ways?

Reading together

Research shows that reading texts together is the best way to work with literature in school.

The benefits are:

We do it in class

We are all at the same place in the text

We can discuss the text together

Peaceful reading

Within 6 minutes something physiological happens to us when we read.

Our heart beat slows

Our muscles relax

Stress hormones decrease

We reach a state that resembles meditation.

Peaceful reading

You might feel sleepy and

 if you need to stretch or yawn

it is okay.

Your job is to still listen actively

and to participate in the discussions.

Reading strategies

To predict

What is going to happen next?

To clarify

Use clues in the text and your own knowledge to fill in gaps and draw conclusions.

Reading strategies

To identify

Find the author´s purpose, the main ideas

and the themes of the text.

To visualize

Create a mental image of the setting, the characters and the events in the text.

Reading strategies

For instance

Events in the text takes place before women

had the right to vote in the United states.

The author was a "first-wave" feminist and especially interested in the way a woman was subjugated to a man in marriage.

Does that matter while we read the text?

What does the word hysterical mean?

Hysteria as a diagnosis

The latin word for the womb is "hyster"

In the beginning of the 19th century

hysteria was used a medical diagnosis

to "explain" anything that was "wrong" with women.

So "hysteria" literally means a condition of the womb.

Vocabulary

fancies = griller, hjärnspöken

whim = infall

bulbous = utstående

impertinence = oförskämdhet

ravages = härjningar

perserverance = uthållighet

plaster = gips

verily = i sanning

Vocabulary

We will analyze the yellow wallpaper using the ABC method (alone, band, class).

Read about the topics on own for 5-10 minutes. (You can take notes if you want to).

Talk about the topics in your “band” for 10-15 minutes and write down your thoughts on the paper we gave you.

We will then analyze the short story together using your notes and thoughts.