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February 5, 2007
Wallpaper as her own form of therapy?
While trying to keep a historical perspective and think of the author's intent, I re-read this story and realized that it really does take a second reading of a story to pull something new out of it. It's almost like reading with new lenses.
"John is a physician, and PERHAPS--(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)--PERHAPS that is one reason I do not get well faster."
This made me think of how while the wallpaper cages her in (because it's all she has to look at, thanks to her hubby's brilliant idea of "rest therapy"), the paper liberates her because she at least can write and let out some of her pent-up rage. Looking at some of her other works online made me see that indeed she did have certain feelings towards men and of course, led me to question what her life was really like. She mentioned in one article about the importance of a woman not being a man's servant, but being apart of a man's soul. I think this could easily be applied to many works, but it still doesn't let me know who she is or why exactly she wrote the text. I think to really know author intent we'd have to be living in their mind, so the best we can do is interpret the words and see where we are lead.
Posted by ErinWaite at February 5, 2007 12:32 PM