Week 1-Assignment 1-Conference Discussion-The Yellow Wallpaper

Front 1

1) Can a work of fiction, as The Yellow Wallpaper, be considered a psychological case study, and teach us as much as a scientific study, and if yes, what can be learned from this short story?

Back 1

-A work of fiction by default cannot "used" as a psychological or scientific study. The author may have based "The Yellow Wallpaper" on a case study, If I knew nothing about mental illnesses or paranoid schitzophrenia, I may watch the film and think that when someone doesn't take there medication, they loose their pupils and crawl around like they are possessed by a demon. If this was non-ficton; it would, in fact, be a fascinating case study.
This story is intended to question what is really causing Charlotte's problem. Is her mind hardwired to be a creator, natural reader, and writer; and her controlling husband is isolating her from not only her passion of literature, but the outside world; because he is an intelligent but cold and calculating person that must take control and minipulate anything he does not understand? (per his conversation about smelling flowers and getting upset because he couldn't fully explain WHY he was smelling flowers, or when he mentioned to Charlotte that it make him happy to know exactly where she is when he thinks about her) We witness her having auditory and visual hallucinations and ask "Is she crazy? Or is something else happening?"
While talking to the maid, Charlotte has a moment of perceived psychosis, when she's looking out the window and see's the girl in the white dress riding a bicycle. She talks about her dreams as a little girl not being realized because she met her husband who was a doctor and she allowed herself to be inferior to him.
Part 6 takes a turn, you are no longer waiting for Charlotte's justice and her ultimate escape from the house and recovery. Instead, her condition deteriorates, and you become more convinced that she is actually sick. The finale, is in fact, a moment that is the final redemtion for Charlotte, when she free's the bed, blocks the door, and begins to rip the wallpaper. Immediately I remembered the noises, the eyeballs, and I thought, she's been a "lab rat", a "case study" and the house was her cage. A final heartbreak when we realize that she actually was paranoid, dillusional, etc. But that still leaves the original question. Was she secluded from the outside world because she was mentally ill, and the treatment was legitimate, with the husbands intentions to actually cure her? or did she loose her mind because her husband isolated her from the outside world; and his intentions were to control her?

The girl in white riding the bicycle (her as a child) represented the potential for her to recover; and the girl in yellow crawling was a premonition of the outcome of her falling into a complete state of psychosis.

In conclusion, much can be considered and confirmed through the eyes of a viewer who already has knowledge on psychological disorders? For someone who has no knowledge of psychology, this story is thought provoking, a mystery, and leaves one wondering if she was. in fact, sick.

Front 2

2) Would Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author of The Yellow Wallpaper, an American whose principle language is English have a different kind of brain than a comparable female Chinese fiction writer?

Back 2

-I think i'll utilize my newly acquired critical thinking skills by asking "What do you mean what KIND of brain?"
-Any two beings from the same species, share the same anatomy, including the brain. With the same brain structure comes the same potential for learning and creating.
-However, culture; which determines personality, behavior; values, etc.; along with language differences, will have an effect on the outcome of a story told, especially a fictional story like "The Yellow Wallpaper."