Do Now: Discuss the following quotes:

1. Aim: How does Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” address the question of madness and one’s role in society? Do Now: Discuss the following quotes: “All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.” - Yann Martel, Life of Pi “Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” - Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

2. 19th Century New Woman • The emergence of an educated, free-thinking, independent woman • Begins to challenge the primarily domestic roles of women • Begins to exert control over her own life whether it was personal, social, economic, sexual – autonomy becomes a key goal (autonomy – one who gives oneself their own law)

4. Charlotte Perkins Gilman • “Every kind of creature is developed by the exercises of its functions. If denied the exercises of its functions, it cannot develop in the fullest degree.”

5. Nursery-Prison • The nursery suggests she is being treated as a child - patronizing • Barred windows, nailed down bed, gate at the stairs • The protagonist finds herself in a prison-like setting both physically and of the mind

6. Gothic Literature • Ghosts, supernatural elements • Ruined buildings and structures, dark spaces, crumbling architecture, deterioration and decay • Wild landscape, lush forests, overgrown trees, cliffs and bluffs off the shore • Use of shadows and darkness, dimmed light sources • Passion driven villian-hero • Curious heroine • Protoganist isolated in some way

7. Gothic protagonist • Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick writes in her essay, "The Structure of the Gothic Convention,” that the idea of a protagonist having a struggle with a terrible, surreal person or force is a metaphor for an individual's struggle with repressed emotions or thoughts (Sedgwick 1).