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HELP feedback needed please!!?

i am writing about imagery in the yellow wallpaper. I am stuck on the opening paragraph, and would like some feedback on what i have already wrote. Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses strong imagery in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Imagery in the story is used throughout to reinforce the theme. When the narrator first tells you of the house she is staying at the house is described as, “beautiful…quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village,” (Gilman 533). To the reader this brings up a mental picture of peacefulness. To the narrator, the location of the house itself already seems to be foreshadowing isolation. The majority of the narrator’s time is spent in a nursery with, “barred windows for little children” and wallpaper with, “flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin…the color is repellent…a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others,” (Gilman, 534). The reader visualizes this room as hideously ugly; to the narrator this room seems to be a prison in the making. The narrator can see a garden out of one of the nursery windows that has, “ mysterious deep-shaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees,” through another window, “a view of the bay and a little private wharf…there is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house,” (Gilman 535). The reader imagines this as an uglier outdated side of the lawn and a more peaceful prettier side. To the narrator these different views seem to be her living situation. She is secluded in an outdated ugly room with no freedom, she would like a prettier room and to have the freedom to walk down the beautiful shaded lane but her husband forbids her to.

Public Comments

1. OK, I know that you're going to probably go over the grammar but the first sentence should be re-phrased. The quotations are fine, though. I'm not sure about the "comparing reader and narrator" part. If you, the reader, is getting certain imagery from the story, it would seem redundant to also assume the imagery of the narrator. If you feel as though at first you thought the drive to the house was peaceful and then began to feel it's foreshadowing loneliness, keep yourself the recipient of the imagery and use the narrator as your guide for your imagery. Adding the narrator's quotes straight from the story is fine... just tell us what you're getting from that. You seem to have started doing just that later in the paragraph. I just realized that maybe the last quotes that she used is sort of a metaphor for what the woman is feeling toward her situation and what her husband and the doctor thinks is best for her. The woman finally goes nuts (the gnarly side) but her husband and doctor think that she's going to come out of the room a brand new woman. Also, it seems as though you've gotten confused about what you're trying to say and you ended the paragraph rather quickly. Go back and reword it after reading what I wrote and see if that helps. There is poor word choice (outdated ugly room with no freedom) so while you are visualizing the imagery from the story, you also need to give your instructor imagery from your paragraph. I hope this helps and if this is total crap or don't understand it, please let me know. lol winds_of_rome@yahoo.com I remember this story quite well and the history behind it. Gilman, herself, had a similar experience. I believe that her husband did the same thing to her but this was a common practice following childbirth. What they didn't realize was that they were worsening the condition of postpartum depression rather than helping it. It is also speculated that this was just a way for the husbands to get rid of their wives for a while and they took advantage of "Dr. Weir's Rest Cure." I had to do an elaborate essay for this story so I had to research the actual history. This was also a time of psychological experiments conducted on humans (and children) and has since been outlawed. Such experiments can be conducted today but they are not allowed to hinder someone's emotional or psychological state. Anyway, is this for high school or college?