Literary Analysis Thesis

Thesis: "The use of the color white in Sarah Orne Jewett's "The White Heron" and of the color yellow in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" show how symbolism can be used to describe the feelings of the characters in the stories.

Critical Analysis

The critical reading session in class today was very interesting. It was crazy to see how the story that I had read and got meaning out of had a completely different side to it. It was almost like reading another story altogether. I plan on using more time and effort in really looking into a story and finding all of its hidden meanings.

Symbolism

Symbolism is used in both The Yellow Wallpaper and The White Heron through different colors. In Heron, the color white is used. Sylvia is about to show the hunter where the heron has its nest, but when she sees it is all of its purity she realizes the purity of the world around her and can't bring her self to reveal the bird's location. On the other side of the spectrum, the woman from The Yellow Wallpaper, is surrounded by the color yellow and begins to see it as something that is dirty and foul, the opposite of pure.

Response to The Yellow Wallpaper

Women's conditions at this time were atrocious. They were treated as subservient and kept down by their male counterparts and it was believed that their place in the world was as caregivers and homemakers. Those women that did work, worked terrible, usually dangerous, jobs that paid far less than what a male would be paid for the exact same position. Women were also not deemed as smart as men, for it was believed that women didn't have the brainpower or ability to reason. This was one of the reasons that women we're not allowed to vote until the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. After a while this can take a very hard physical, emotional, and mental toll on a person as we saw in The Yellow Wallpaper.