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Reading Journal #6—Thérèse Raquin

Émile Zola's Thérèse Raquin tells the story of a young Thérèse Raquin who is married to her cousin, Camille. The couple lives in Paris, France with Camille’s mother, Madame Raquin. While in Paris, Thérèse enters an impassioned affair with Camille’s friend Laurent. Together, Thérèse and Laurent murder Camille and eventually commit joint suicide in front of the recently paralyzed Madame Raquin. Thérèse Raquin is less of a realist novel as it is a naturalist novel (a genre agreed to be first developed by Zola himself.) The story’s narration feels considerably “detached” compared to other Victorian novels such as Charles Dickens’s arsenal of realist novels, which often examine its characters with a more “personal” lens. 

Thérèse Raquin is complicated by its portrayal of deceitfulness. For example, Thérèse is undoubtedly an unreliable character. Her origin itself is uncertain, due to the unknown identity of her Algerian mother. Readers understand that Thérèse's father is a French sea captain, but the poorly explained person that is her mother gives Thérèse and her history an additional element of ambiguity. 

The affair between Thérèse and Laurent, like all affairs, is founded by lies. The couple hides their extramarital relationship from Camille and Madame Raquin, which only adds to the intensity of their bond. When Thérèse and Laurent murder Camille, they hide the truth from Madame Raquin and others. Later in the novel, this deception becomes more deadly than innocent. Eventually, Madame Raquin learns of her son’s murder, which adds more stress to Thérèse and Laurent's already weakening relationship. By the novel's conclusion, it becomes clear that Laurent is equally effective in lying as Thérèse when they almost murder each other in response to their maddening states of mind. 

Related to Thérèse Raquin’s thematic employment of deceit is revenge. Thérèse is freed from Camille's hypochondriac tendencies, which forced her into a sickly lifestyle through their marriage after she and Laurent murder him. Similarly, Madame Raquin gets revenge after Thérèse and Laurent kill themselves out of guilt, confusion, and dysfunction right in front of her. She knows that they killed her son, but she cannot take any action to prove it due to her paralysis. Thérèse and Laurent's final demise is the most satisfying conclusion for Thérèse Raquin because of its damning and finite qualities.

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Reading Journal #5—Dracula

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is one of the most famous books of Victorian literature. It is assumed that the novel draws several points of inspiration from sources such as Transylvanian folklore and historical figures such as Vlad the Impaler and Elizabeth Báthory. Written in an epistolary style, Dracula is composed of personal letters, newspaper clippings, diary entries, and telegrams. Although Dracula was received well enough at the time of its publication, its readership has continued to grow and establish a literary legacy. The novel manages to be simultaneously relatively progressive in its portrayals of gender and sexuality, as well as blatantly antisemitic and racist in its depiction of non-Anglo Saxons.  

Dracula manages to remix the Victorian period’s preconceived notions of sexuality and gender roles. Some scholars suspect that Stoker himself was homosexual, noting his close relationships with Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman. Stoker’s characters in Dracula challenge even modern-day ideas of masculinity and femininity. Where Johnathan Harker is particularly passive and of a submissive nature, his wife Mina adopts traits of the era’s feminist “new woman.” Mina is ambitious rather than reserved and is comfortable with her independence. Stoker also presents a certain duality of sex appeal in Dracula’s female characters. When women such as Lucy Westenra and Mina are vampires, they appear sexually liberated. In addition, the male characters are noticeably repulsed by the female vampires’ voluptuous bodies and sensuality (the exception being Johnathan Harker when being seduced and at threat of penetration by Count Dracula’s three wives.) 

Another component of Dracula’s notoriety is its portrayal of race and racism. Like George du Maurier’s Svengali in Trilby and Charles Dickens’s Fagin in Oliver Twist, Stoker’s Count Dracula is composed of stereotypically Jewish physical features and is the novel’s antagonist. Count Dracula is parasitic to England; intending on monopolizing property in the empire’s homeland. In addition, Count Dracula is excessively wealthy and greedy, traits made undesirable by the archaic associations with Jewish people. Stoker also integrates racism targeting Romani people, who were considered dirty and backward compared to the clean and new-fangled British. Count Dracula is a kidnapper and can morph into different animals, connecting the association between Transylvanians and their rumored animalistic habits. Dracula is an example of fear-based “invasion literature,” centered on the dirtying of racially pure populations and reverse colonization. 

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Reading Journal #4—Trilby

George Du Maurier’s eighteen ninety-four novel Trilby chronicles Trilby O’Ferrall’s story as a French model-turned-singer while under the spell of the hypnotist Svengali. When Svengali dies after a dramatic confrontation, the spell is broken. Eventually, Trilby perishes as well, assumedly due to the nerves associated with Svengali’s memory. Set in eighteen-fifties Paris, the novel explores bohemianism and hypnotism and is associated with elements of antisemitism by modern-day readers. 

Bohemianism is an unconventional lifestyle characterized by the rejection of mainstream culture and instead opting for more alternative, artistic elements. Trilby O’Ferrall is identified as a bohemian, first described as shrouded in an eccentric array of textiles. Her character contrasts with Taffy, Laird, and William Bagot (known as Little Billee for most of the novel), who are portrayed as sophisticated and organized. Her differences make her more susceptible to Svengali’s vile influence, but she will not be aware of his hypnotism until the spell’s ultimate failure. 

Trilby’s relationship with Svengali is characterized by Svengali’s manipulation of her using hypnotism. Related to mesmerism, the novel’s inclusion of hypnotism is effective in being a fictionalized example of Victorian medicinal practices. In Trilby, hypnotism is portrayed as an unsettling phenomenon. Although Svengali’s hypnotism proffers Trilby her talent and fame, its sudden absence at the time of Svengali’s death causes agitation from their audience and suffering for Trilby herself. Hypnosis is magnetic in its power yet proves itself deadly by the novel’s end. 

Svengali is a character in Trilby but is also a word associated with evilness and manipulation. His physical features include traits used in historically antisemitic portrayals of Jewish people. He has “beady” eyes and “yellow” teeth. His character is unclean and unattractive, and he happens to be the novel’s antagonist. Such an occurrence is not unheard of in Victorian literature, considering the century in which the novel was written and the setting it possesses. Modern-day readers need to note these racist characteristics when analyzing its text to avoid furthering its stereotypes. Such tools may be useful in identifying more discreet caricatures in today’s literature, as well.

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Reading Journal #3—Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith 

Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman presents to readers a historical, nonfictional account of the relationship between Charles and Emma Darwin. The book details the couple’s marriage after Charles’s return from the Galapágos Islands (the Ecuadorian archipelago famous for being where Charles examined the phenomenon of evolution.) Honest, and at times intimate, Heiligman offers readers a more personal view of the Darwins’ life amid Charles’ scientific research and Emma’s staunch religious beliefs. 

Charles and Emma’s relationship transcended that of a typical marriage in the nineteenth century, specifically that of England during the Victorian era. They engaged in thought-provoking conversations and held mutual respect for one another’s intelligence. Later, their household was anything but quiet. Though only seven out of their ten children reached adulthood, the number managed to maintain its audible volume. Charles and Emma’s children were afforded the simple freedoms of playtime and conversation with their adult counterparts. Such culture in the home was unheard of at the time, as children were expected to keep to themselves and only speak when spoken to. Together, the couple built a home of nourishment and love for their family. 

However, their marriage was not without its challenges. Being decidedly agnostic and preferably a “logical” thinker rather than an “emotional” one, Charles’s theories usually dismissed the nature of Emma’s Christian beliefs, which she used as a comfort after the passing of her sister Fannie from years prior. Emma feared that Charles’s soul would not reach heaven due to his ambiguous faith, yet he reassured her and comforted her anxieties without simplifying the situation to the point of idiocy. Their relationship is commonly compared to being a distinct union of science and religion—learning to coexist with each other’s philosophies, and even sharing certain qualities without sacrificing their matrimonial bond. 

Though Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith is technically a biography, readers can identify the anomaly which was Charles and Emma’s marriage compared to the Victorian ideal. Because Charles Darwin is so well known for his scientific observations, the strength of his shared bond with his spouse is especially profound considering the circumstances of the society and period they found themselves in. 

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Reading Journal #2—A Tale of Two Cities

Perhaps one of his best-known novels, Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities is a historical fictionalized account of the French Revolution, with much of its story centering on the Reign of Terror period. Readers follow a collection of characters whose lives cross one another through the serials, or “books” as the novel’s action builds like the French’s angst. A Tale of Two Cities proves itself a timeless classic from the collection of Victorian literature, blending the grim and grotesque with action and adventure—a steadfast recipe for decades of awestruck audiences.

The novel’s narrator is commonly agreed as being Dickens himself, serving as an all-knowing reporter possessing knowledge of all characters’ histories and presents (within necessity for the plot due to its straightforward nature.) As a reader, one is afforded the luxury of such a bird’s-eye view that A Tale of Two Cities is arguably much simpler to digest compared to Dickens’s other works. Being third-person omniscient, readers may more easily draw their conclusions or craft their predictions due to the lack of biasing in the storytelling, which is further nuanced by its periodical “jumps” through time.

Relating to the idea of A Tale of Two Cities being a more accessible read for general audiences is the relative symbolism between wine and blood. With Ernest Defarge and Madame Defarge owning a wine shop in France that also serves as the revolutionaries’ meeting place, it is only fitting that wine be synonymous with blood due to the Defarges’ bloodlust (specifically that of Madame Defarge, as she only further proves her rage in her knitting, which acts as a secretive form of recordkeeping for the Reign of Terror.) Blood is an intoxicating substance—as more is spilled, more is consumed, and craved. The craving for blood becomes insatiable for Madame Defarge by the time of her character’s demise. At the beginning of the novel, a cask of wine is broken near the Defarges’ wine shop in St. Antoine. Starving and desperate and mad, Parisians claw their way through each other to feast upon the blood-colored spill.

 While revolution is regarded as necessary by certain characters, engaging in it excessively forces one to become sloppy, and careless. Eventually, anyone can land themselves a victim of the guillotine. Even when Sydney Carton inserts himself as Charles Darnay by the novel’s end, no one seems to notice the swapping of prisoners. If Charles Darnay was executed (even if the executed Charles Darnay was of Sydney Carton’s disposition), it meant the never-ending blood as well as the spilled wine was worth it. 

Though bloody, A Tale of Two Cities is not murky. Instead, it could not be clearer its intentions of both masterful storytelling and damning warning. The novel has, again and again, proved its place on the shelves of readers and scholars alike aiming to learn from its masterful blending of one intimate web of characters and encounters throughout the French Revolution

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Reading Journal #1—Villette

Charlotte Brontë’s Villette is a somber product of Victorian literature, exhibiting contemporary readers a not-so-fictional delineation of the straitlaced society of which it was authored. Published in January of 1853, the gothic novel examines and recounts the life of Lucy Snowe, as narrated by herself. 

Although Lucy is painstakingly observational, she is acutely unreliable. Villette, undoubtedly enhanced by Brontë’s own life experiences analogous to Lucy’s, serves as a quintessential specimen of Victorian literature being that it follows Lucy’s psychology so closely. Her origin is hardly mentioned, and the snippets of her life she reveals to readers are blurry in their borders. Personality-wise, Lucy is manifestly intelligent, but that intelligence is often unseen by her peers (perhaps this ignorance is more so welcomed by Lucy’s feelings of being overlooked­—likely a product of her insecurities.)

            It is easily observed that the symptoms of Lucy’s mental illness are only intensified during periods of isolation or loneliness. Her bouts of madness are perceived as hysterical, nonsensical fits (such fits challenged the Victorian era’s ideas of middle-class femininity—a brand of femininity noted for its qualities of acquiescence and composure.) 

Brontë seamlessly blends such agitation with the complications of Lucy’s tempestuous feelings regarding both M. Paul Emanuel and Dr. John Graham Bretton. Both men, in a sense, force Lucy into confinement (Dr. John when he is treating Lucy, and M. Paul when he demands Lucy memorize her lines for the play by locking her in an attic.) These examples of what are essentially instances of solitary confinement only further complicate Lucy’s association of negative emotions with being by oneself, especially being by herself. 

However independent Lucy may be, she is still a victim of the patriarchal, highly traditional society in which Villette is set. Feelings of love become synonymous with conformity to the Victorian era’s rules as to under what circumstances should a woman be allowed to love a man. The concept of love becomes muddled with specificities that eventually only M. Paul can satiate for Lucy, although he too once caused Lucy a deal of varyingly conscious levels of pain.

Charlotte Brontë’s writing finds literary and historical success in the novel that is Villette. Its themes are bound by Lucy’s precise style of narration despite her prejudices (which may be more easily identifiable and separated by the close reader.) If Brontë herself were a character of her canon, Lucy Snow may be her most similar foil. The attention paid to Villette’s thematic composition is not of the divided variety and serves as an excellent sample of Victorian-era literature.

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MLA Literary Analysis Paper: "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

MLA Literary Analysis Paper: “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

How can tradition run so deeply to the point of apathy and hypocrisy? A byproduct of regionalist literature in the United States, Shirley Jackson’s illustration of an Americanesque tradition in her uncanny narrative “The Lottery” depicts a lifeless custom depleted of significance. Her exploration of barren ritual tears at the thin seams of crowd mentality, threatening cultural disorder. Friends are foes in the same rite. The gambling of human life is supported by generational obligation and the products of idolatry. Set in an ordinary town with familiar folks, Jackson’s narrative evokes a cryptic sense of discomfort, fiddling with the harsh truths of outgrowing a deceitful tradition and continuing to practice it. Jackson’s “The Lottery” examines themes of community, symbolic personification, and near-deification without remorse.

The community in which “The Lottery” takes place is a public, traditional one. Neighbors are tight-knit, and relationships intertwine based on gossip. The men work in the fields, presumably as farmers. The women stay at home, cooking and cleaning. The children go to school. It is established that the lottery is of great importance to the community, without explanation, and each year “The lottery is held…because it has always been done that way” (Bogert 46). Given never is a “reason for the lottery, except that of tradition” (Bogert 46). The townspeople conform without question. They do not wince at “the morality of a game that gambles with human life,” but sigh in desperate relief when their families are not the chosen ones (Beauchamp 201). In “The Lottery”, most townspeople do not seem to consider the ritual to be a game. Mrs. Tess Hutchinson is eager to participate in the yearly lottery, she “came hurriedly along the path to the square” (Jackson 392). It is not until Mrs. Hutchinson finds her family to be the unlucky household, does she voice “‘I tell you it wasn’t fair’” (Jackson 394). There is no question or consideration of fairness in the lottery��s situation—it is what must be done. Not once do the neighbors she may have considered to be friends or at least friendly, protest in support of her. The fear in her voice, the panic in her eyes—these physical wails are ultimately ignored by everyone. Even Mrs. Hutchinson’s husband, Mr. Bill Hutchinson, either ignores or sees through her grief, telling her to “‘Shut up, Tessie’” (Jackson 394.) His embarrassment of her behavior is the final act of betrayal she will feel. There is souring hypocrisy in the crowd, and everyone is guilty of it, in varying forms.

Old Man Warner defends the tradition with an unforgiving sharp tongue, indicative of his allegiance to the gamble and the normalcy of its yearly occurrence. The lottery was settled “…before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born” (Jackson 391). This factoid forces the town to be perceived as truly ancient, almost omniscient. Old Man Warner represents a “…voice of the past, foe of change” (Nebeker 105). His age and experience are worshiped by his fellow citizens in the name of conformity; because he is seemingly all-knowing, and not just an irate senior.

To Old Man Warner, doing away with the lottery would not be a visceral disappointment, but an unspeakable, unthinkable, action. When the mention of a neighboring town quitting its lottery arises, Old Man Warner retorts “‘Pack of crazy fools…Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them…There’s always been a lottery” (Jackson 392). Old Man Warner is not disappointed, but indignant. Why any functioning town would do away with the tradition that preserves the life inside it is beyond his comprehension—not because the tradition is a painful one, but because each year has not gone by without one. He blames the youth, whom he considers to be more soft, juvenile than refreshing: “It’s not the way it used to be. People ain’t the way they used to be” (Jackson 395). Old Man Warner implies that “…honor and envy were accorded those chosen to die for the common welfare” (Nebeker 104). Old Man Warner is wholly the voice of the elder reasoning for the lottery. The lottery is a communal rite, and participation is the duty of all townspersons, without excuse or exception.

The black box in which the fateful slips of paper are held manifests significance of its own. It is symbolic, both in the literary sense and for the townspeople, in that “…it’s prehistoric origin is revealed in the mention of the ‘original wood color’ showing along one side as well as in the belief that it has been constructed by the first people who settle down…” (Nebeker 103). The box serves as a physical representation of the age of the town—it is much older than Old Man Warner, the oldest citizen of over seventy years—and the dedication of lottery participation over the years. It is suspected by the townspeople that “…the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it…The black box grew shabbier each year; by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained” (Jackson 391). It is appropriate to assume that by rebuilding the current black box with fragments of the original, the box accurately serves as a visual reminder of the town’s past, and what the box has witnessed since its predecessor’s creation. This creates an enigma, almost a causal loop of sorts, restricting the townspeople’s ability to alter its composition, literally or metaphorically.

Though the box technically exists, it grows weaker each passing lottery as the ritual lessens in popularity. The box’s purpose is threatened with each neighboring town’s eradication of their lotteries, but the stubborn worship of the tradition the box serves is what keeps it intact. Mr. Joe Summers, the de-facto organizer of communal events in town and lottery host, and “Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything’s being done” (Jackson 391). Plausibly, this exertion from Mr. Summers is representative of the community’s inexplicit, unconscious desire to change, but an inability to let go of its custom, even if through a minuscule example, because “The present box has been made from pieces of the original (as though it were salvaged somehow) and is now blackened, faded, and stained” (Nebeker 103). Not committing to executing the change is not out of laziness, a poor excuse for the matter, but out of brainwashed, halfhearted conformity. The tumultuous black box is a freakish product of one town’s staunch grip on preserving dedicated to a bloodlust tradition.

At large, Shirley Jackson accurately paints the painful portrait of committing to archaic choices in “The Lottery”. A hugely anthologized story, her narrative is an arcane one, forcing readers to experience discomfort and witness firsthand the meddling hypocrisy present when settling in a crowd mentality. The characters are duly calculated representations of the ashamed cry against such a sobering ritual. Everything is not as it seems. “The Lottery”, however, is not necessarily a story about a provincial woman’s stoning in a generic town, surrounded by a lack of mercy or humanity. It is about the strange togetherness among neighbors against what would be considered mutual support. There are allegiances against friends for the sake of saving oneself—such self-rapture hardly touches the basis of the family. A singular voice tightens the loosening gauge concerning the ethics of the lottery, and that voice is respected based on age and false wisdom credited to experience. Unforgiving, desensitized, haunting—Shirley Jackson’s classic “The Lottery” unapologetically addresses the uncanny and the uncomfortable with meticulously drafted familiarity.

Works Cited

Beauchamp, Dan E. “Lottery Justice.” Journal of Public Health Policy, vol. 2, no. 3, 1981, pp. 201–05. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/3342366.

Bogert, Edna. “Censorship and ‘The Lottery.’” The English Journal, vol. 74, no. 1, 1985, pp. 45–47. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/816508.

Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” The Art of the Short Story, edited by Dana Gioia and R. Gwynn, New York, Pearson Longman, 2005, pp. 390–96.

Nebeker, Helen E. “‘The Lottery’: Symbolic Tour de Force.” American Literature, vol. 46, no. 1, 1974, pp. 100–08. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/2924129.

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Comparing "The Pat Boone Fan Club" and "Sorry" (Comparison and Contrast Paper)

Comparing “The Pat Boone Fan Club” and “Sorry”

Sue William Silverman’s essay “The Pat Boone Fan Club” from The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew and Lee Martin’s essay “Sorry” explore the complicated substance of fatherhood. Silverman and Martin’s narratives examine the dense connections both writers experienced with their fathers and the impact of their fathers’ mistreatment. Silverman projects her pain onto an entity separate from her biological father, and Martin excuses his being neglected for chances to feel wholly loved. Each writer accounts for their suffering differently amid their common form of a strained relationship.

The root of Sue William Silverman’s broken connection with her father is the years of molestation he inflicted upon her. Her salvation, her protector during the darkest days of her adolescence was the wholesomeness of Pat Boone. Boone, a singer popular in the 1950s and 1960s, emanated to her “‘Safety’”, “‘Holiness’”, and “‘Purity’” (Silverman 471). He served to her an idol of clarity and calmness. Silverman’s fantastical reality fostered a certain detachment from her distressing personal life, so much that she stated “I wanted to be with him… Any one of these relationships would do.” To have a connection with Boone, to be with him in a way more permanent than her relationship with her father, was her flight of imagination. Such disconnect from her father allowed for the idolatry of Boone, a preoccupied man with no knowledge of Silverman’s existence or desperation.

Lee Martin accounts his fissured childhood with his father’s cruelty. A timid boy, Martin felt he “…turned out to be the sort of son I’m sure my father wouldn’t have chosen…My father’s response to my fainthearted nature was one of anger” (Martin 344). Martin’s hesitancy towards the masculine, daunting parts of farm life seemed to mock his father’s impatient personality, a personality that made him too careless in previous years and caused the severing of his hands. Amongst his father’s bouts of beating and swearing, Martin wholeheartedly believed “…the whippings he had given me, would convince myself that there wouldn’t be any others, that we were moving into a better part of our lives.” Although Martin sometimes felt his father’s pride when duty called, love was to be earned, and Martin felt no love. Martin obeyed his father, and although he never ceased trying to appeal to him, even after countless rejections.

What The Pat Boone Fan Club and Sorry share is the indication of growth Silverman and Martin convey by the end of their essays, respectively. Silverman’s growth is not as convenient to reveal. She displays maturity in accepting what Pat Boone meant to her, with “Did he help sustain me all these years…I conjured him into the man I needed him to be: a safe father…without my even asking” (Silverman 472). Martin grew through independence and adulthood. He reflects “I wanted no reminder of the timid boy I had been…and the last thing I needed was to be reminded of what a ‘poor little guy’ I had been.” He literally grew out of the remnants of the pain in which he was constantly surrounded and expresses his autonomy. Silverman and Lee’s common reflection of their pasts indicate a certain degree of development after growing out of childhood.

Together, Sue William Silverman’s The Pat Boone Fan Club and Lee Martin’s Sorry approach the enigma of father-child relationships. Both essayists illustrate their unhealthy bonds, or lack thereof, to their fathers, with different experiences to distinguish their childhoods. Both writers’ unique relationships share the process of growth, a change largely observable and demonstrated later in life as adults with fuller, wiser experiences. Silverman and Martin portray the growing pains of childhood with damaging connections to their fathers in a raw fashion. The distinctive thought processes illuminate their individual struggles and emphasize their shared type of pain.

Works Cited

Martin, Lee. “Sorry.” Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to Present, edited by Lex Williford and Michael Martone, New York, Touchstone, 2007, pp. 343–53.

Silverman, Sue William. “The Pat Boone Fan Club.” Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to Present, edited by Lex Williford and Michael Martone, New York, Touchstone, 2007, pp. 464–72.

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Explication of Scene Paper (Drama)

My selected scene for explication is Roger, Mimi, and the Company's performance of “Another Day” from RENT by Jonathon Larson. “Another Day” expounds the romantic tension between characters Roger and Mimi. Both individuals’ lives are complicated with tragedies, including the shared condition of HIV/AIDS and histories of drug usage. Representing the couple’s mutual heartsickness, the performance brings to life an emotionally charged rendition of Roger’s pain and Mimi’s desire.

            The scene begins with a sensual kiss initiated by Mimi (“Another Day – RENT (2008 Broadway Cast) 0:00–0:06; Larson 43), igniting Roger’s frustration into emotional fury. He explodes with accusations against Mimi—accusations that thinly veil his attraction to her. Roger desires to be with Mimi, but he lives in the fear of such vulnerability. He cannot risk the sacrifice of gaining intimacy with another possible lover, because he knows his life is both valuable and short.

           Mimi lusts for Roger and the possibility of their shared love, but does so much more openly, without disguising her feelings. Whereas Roger only alludes to his attraction to her with simple, yet raw descriptors (“Another Day – RENT (2008 Broadway Cast) 0:21–0:36; Larson 43), Mimi practically declares her devotion to Roger by exclaiming what is left unspoken by him (“Another Day – RENT (2008 Broadway Cast) 1:01–1:51; Larson 44). Both characters yearn for the same comfort, to be together, but Roger is pessimistic, and Mimi is suffocating. By declaring their feelings, whether directly or not, one turns off and exaggerates the other.

           The tension builds after Roger’s sharp rebuttal to Mimi’s proposition. There is a palpable quiver of anger in his voice. Behind Roger’s words is a conflict of living a life of love versus the possibility of losing his remaining sanity over what could be a trivial relationship. A pivotal factor, especially later in the play, is that both he and Mimi live with HIV/AIDS. This detail supports Roger’s hesitancy against becoming involved with Mimi, but he only knows that he has it, not she as well. A second, lingering offense against a possible relationship is Mimi’s heroin usage. Her lifestyle is painful for Roger, as he used to be a user with his ex-girlfriend April, who committed suicide after learning she and Roger contracted HIV/AIDS, presumably from needles. Roger is acutely aware of the side effects of Mimi’s lifestyle, and he refuses to be exposed to the world that serves as his nightmare (“Another Day – RENT (2008 Broadway Cast) 1:51–2:12; Larson 44).

           Headstrong, Mimi either cannot or refuses to consider what Roger may be thinking or feeling, even though his reasons are partially hidden beneath the words he uses. Mimi is not simple, but she fails to comprehend how much of a risk the possibility of a relationship between them is for him. While it is debatable at this point in the play who is in the “right” and who is in the “wrong”, if such concepts equally exist in the scenario of “Another Day”, Mimi ignores Roger’s cool energy. What Roger considers a situation that is bound to turn sour, Mimi desires to sweeten what could be a meaningful relationship that could last, if only for today (“Another Day – RENT (2008 Broadway Cast) 2:32–2:57; Larson 45.) Concluding the scene is Roger’s exasperation, against both himself and the situation, against Mimi’s continuing request; a juxtaposition between their differing confusions, Roger’s depressive refusal, and Mimi’s unwavering yield (“Another Day – RENT (2008 Broadway Cast) 2:58–4:24; Larson 45).

           The culture in which Roger and Mimi are immersed is concurrently populated by the complications of living with HIV/AIDS. Compared to characters living without HIV/AIDS, their world is navigated differently concerning intimacy. The logical and personal risks that weigh heavily on Roger are understood by Mimi, albeit surpassing the wall he weakly builds between them. Their dance in “Another Day” immerses their characters in a range of passion that by the end of it, their true colors have been revealed to one another.

Works Cited

“Another Day - RENT (2008 Broadway Cast).” YouTube, uploaded by BroadwayInHD, 10 Sept. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oRZWXWd-xk.

Larson, Jonathan. Rent: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical. New York, Applause, 2008.

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Personal Response #1 (Short Story)

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman bridges the gap between Gothic literature and nineteenth-century mental health care. The fictional narrative, based on Gilman’s own experience undergoing treatment for neurasthenia, details the mental derailment of a young woman experiencing what is now understood as post-partum depression. The unnamed narrator describes herself as being remedied for “temporary nervous depression” with “a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 297). Her husband John, a physician, prescribes rest cure, a treatment common for mental and physical ailments at the time.  

Having been ill herself, Gilman underwent such prescription. Her rest cure, much like The Yellow Wallpaper’s narrator’s rest cure, consisted of bed confinement and being nourished by caretakers, such as nurses. Gilman attended Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell’s sanitorium after “nerve force” sickened her wellbeing (Hamilton 212). Gilman based the narrator’s deprivation from intellectual stimulation, such as reading and writing, from her own experience in the sanitorium. Out of desperation and boredom, the narrator discovers increasing fascination out of the wallpaper patterning the room in which she is confined. As the weeks turn and the narrator’s sanity brittles, the wallpaper becomes a deranged substitution for healthy stimulation (Hochman 90).

After being exposed to The Yellow Wallpaper, as a reader I feel as though I can safely mention the relationship between the narrative and Gilman’s intent in authoring the story. Gilman emerged from her rest cure treatment a woman exhausted and angered. She expresses her desire for a listening ear, or a change of idea via the character of the narrator. Struggling for a voice amid a male-dominated medical field during a time when mental health was not regarded as highly as it is today, Gilman’s frustration is palpable from the beginning of the story (Roethle 148). The progression of boredom and mental malnourishment is provided by Gilman’s narrator, as her reliability becomes questionable and the energy behind her words becomes erratic (Hamilton 215). I agree this display of mania is more so meant to bring to light the horrors of mental health treatment, specifically of women, rather than to be an enthralling depiction of an insane woman.  

The Yellow Wallpaper is Gilman’s fictionalized, yet personal, outlet for exposing the jaded conditions concerning the mental health treatment of women in her time (Roethle 150). One can draw from the detailed exposition of one suffering woman extensively studying the walls that surround her, that this piece of Gilman’s work is not coincidental, especially not during it is time of formulation, when rest cure was such a prominent, yet inhibiting treatment. Consequently, The Yellow Wallpaper successfully dissolved some stigmatism concerning the mental health of women, or like Gilman, women experiencing post-partum depression, persuading a newer, more adaptive angle to be used in the mental health medical field.

Works Cited

Perkins Gilman, Charlotte. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Art of the Short Story, edited by Dana Gioia and R.S. Gwynn. Pearson Longman, 2006, pp. 297–308.

Hamilton, Carole L. “The Collegial Classroom: Teaching Threshold Concepts through Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’” CEA Critic, vol. 77, no. 2, July 2015, pp. 211–22, https://doi.org/10.1353/cea.2015.0016.

Hochman, Barbara. “The Reading Habit and ‘the Yellow Wallpaper.’” American Literature, vol. 74, no. 1, Mar. 2002, pp. 89–110, https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-74-1-89.

Roethle, Christopher. “A Healthy Play of Mind: Art and the Brain in Gilman’s ‘the Yellow Wallpaper.’” American Literary Realism, vol. 52, no. 2, 2020, pp. 147–66, https://doi.org/10.5406/amerlitereal.52.2.0147.

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