The Yellow Wall-Paper
“The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight” (Gilman 43).
As a reader, I could clearly see the dingy yellow wallpaper. I know it’s disgusting, but the shade of yellow reminded me of human waste. I thought that color choice was fitting, because the woman in the story sees her life as a waste. In turn, the quote says that the wallpaper is hit periodically by sunlight. This description shows that the woman has moments of happiness or reflection, but they are few and far between.
Lady Lazarus
“Peel off the napkin. O my enemy. Do I terrify?” (Plath 287).
After reading the entire poem, the napkin image still stood out in my mind. It makes me think that the author is going to mephorically eat the enemy. Or, the character in the poem is rather. It’s such an intense image. It’s like the character is giving the enemy warning of this feast, so it makes the poem seem more suspenseful and angry.
When I Was Growing Up
“I thought I was special, an exotic gardenia, anxious to fit the stereotype of an oriental chick” (Wong 295).
The words “exotic gardenia” help back up the entire poem. All throughout the poem, the author says she feels a little different and away from the mainstream. A gardenia is a pure white color also. It’s like she is a minority that is trying to appear and act white. But, no matter how hard she tries, she will always be a rare flower instead of a common one. The image produced in my head, is a gardenia blooming and dying. The above passage hints that there are times when the author embraces her differences and she blooms. However, the rest of the poem is focused on her almost dying and wiltering. She doesn’t want to bloom and look like she’s supposed to look. She’d rather wilter and flow into the ground.
Ain’t I A Woman?
“I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me” (Truth 442).
I can see the independent woman doing farm work, with beads of sweat rolling down her face. The first thing that came to mind was Scarlett O’ Hara from Gone with the Wind. The scene where she returned to Tara to find her mom dead and father mentally unstable connects to this poem. In the movie, she toils and takes over countless men’s jobs and supposed stereotypical roles for men.
2 comments:
I liked your comments on "When I Was Growing Up," because you talked about the "exotic Gardenia". I like the use of this flower and the imagery it gives the reader when the autho refers to herself as the flower, because all through the poem (as you have said) she is wanting to be white and not her own exotic self. I thought this was a really strong image and it really stood out to me. I also thought it was interesting that here agian we have another example of a woman being compared to a flower, the only different between this piece and the others that use this image, is that in "When I Was Growing Up", the woman portrays herself as a flower. I just thought that was a nea afterthought.
Man, I just wrote so many errors in my post above! LOL
Whoops!
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