1. What is foreshadowing? (Look it up if you don't know; use Google or Dictionary.com.)
Foreshadowing is a tool used to give the reader a hint of what is to come. These hints can be seen in symbols.
2. What elements of the story's opening are working to foreshadow?
In the begging of the story the narrator foreshadows upon her perceived mental state. She says the her husband and brother do not believe she is ill, but has “a slight hysterical tendency.”
3 Describe how her husband cares for her. Does it remind you of how a father might care for a child?
Her husband cares for her in every way he can, “…hardly lets me stir without special directions.” This is similar to a father-child relationship, yet I believe more extreme.
4. What do you think of the mention of a baby at the bottom of this page? Who is this baby? Why has it not been mentioned before?
I think the baby is whoever used to use the nursery before, yet has since grown up and moved out. I think the narrator believes the baby had to live in poor conditions and is happy that this is no long true.
5. Why is she so tired if she is not doing any of the things John and the Doctor say will over-stimulate her?
I think she is fired because her mind is constantly over working. Although she does not do the things she is told not to do, her mental physiology tells her body that she is exhausted.
6. Why does she have to hide that she is writing? What effect do you think that would have on you, if you had to sit in a room all day, unallowed to talk to people, to go out, not even allowed to write out your feelings?
She hides the writing because her husband told her not to write and because she would not want him to see what she had to say. If I had to sit in a room without talking to anyone or even writing I would slightly go insane, and the day would feel like a month. yes, well put
7. Google Weir Mitchell rest cure. What it is?
Rest cure was a treatment of women who had hysteria. Rest cure was a way to treat women with mental illnesses.
8. What might the narrator really be trying to protect her child from? Is it just the room? Or do the room and wallpaper stand as a metaphor for something else, a larger concept?
The narrator wants to protect the child from the wallpaper. She believes that there is evil attributed to the wallpaper. I think this is a metaphor for wanting to protect the body (or herself) from the cruel imprisonment brought upon her by her by her husband and brother.
9. What is happening with the wallpaper's pattern? What could this mean?
I think the wallpaper is a symbol for the way that the narrator is feeling. I think that all the changes the wallpaper is going trough represent all the feeling the narrator is going trough; all the emotional changes.
10. Note the verbs Gilman uses to describe the "smell." Write some down. Do you think those verbs could also be applied to the way she herself lives her life?
Verbs used to describe smells: waddling, creeps, hovering, skulking, hiding, lying.
11.What happens at the end of this story? Explain why you think so using the text (there's no wrong answer if you use the text to explain your thinking).
From what I read, I think that at the end the narrator escapes her captivity from her husband after he dies. She is able to live freely after his death. The text says: “I kept on creeping just the same, but lloked at him over my shoulder. I got our at last in spite of you and Jane”… Now why should that man have fainted? But he did… so I had to creep over him every time.”
Post Reading
This was writing in 1890 and during this time women did not have independence apart from their husbands. They did not have the right to vote because they were seen as feeble or soft minded. I think that the narrator has some of these traits, yet I think the average woman of this time had a more sound mind than the narrator.