the yellow paper

Plot Analysis Outlines

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” describes a woman’s decent to madness as she deals with condition and role in her family and the world.

She is a prisoner (physically)

· There is something strange about the house (364)

· I never saw a worse paper in my life (365)

· Barred windows, and then that gate at the top of the stairs (365)

· The wall paper, as I said before……..the room looks as if it had been through the wars. (366)

· I didn’t do a thing, Jennie sees to everything now (366)

· Any physical description of the room or wallpaper

She has no voice (as a patient or a woman)

· John laughs at me, or course, but one expects that in marriage (364)

· Personally, I disagree with their ideas (364)

· I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes (365)

· I am glad my case is not serious (365)

· John laughs at me so about this wallpaper (365)

· I wish I could get well faster (366)

· I must say what I feel and think in some way (367)

· Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so? (368)

· I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time (367)

· I am getting a little afraid of John (369)

Escape (descent into madness)

· I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure (366)

· There are things in the wallpaper that nobody knows but me or ever will (368)

· The faint figure behind seems to shake the pattern (368)

· The woman behind it is as plain as day (369)

· I turned it off with a laugh. … it was because of the wallpaper (369)

· I thought seriously of burning down the house (369)

· Long even smooch (370)

· Front pattern moves and shakes (370)

· I always lock the door when I creep by daylight (370)

· I got up and ran to help her (370)

· No one touches this paper but me, not alive! (371)

· The bedstead is fairly gnawed (371)

· To jump out of the windows would be an admirable exercise (371)

· Creeping women (371)

· I am securely fastened by my well hidden rope (371)

· I’ve got out at last…..so you can’t put me back (371)

In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” Montressor finds that the price for revenge is not satisfaction and is instead a lifetime of guilt and suffering.

Fortunado (his significance and his sins)

· The thousand injuries of Fortunado…I vowed revenge (291)

· Weak point…connoisseurship in wine (292)

· The man wore motely…canonical cap and bells (292)

· You a mason? (294)

Montressor’s need for revenge

· I must not only punish, but punish with impunity (291)

· Premeditation: There were no attendants at home…as soon as my back was turned (293)

· Foreshadowing: Your health is precious….I shall not die of a cough. True. True. (293)

· Foreshadowing: I drink to your long life (293)

· Foreshadowing: Coat of arms and family motto (293)

· A crypt or recess (294)

· I fettered him to the granite and I began to vigorously wall up the entrance to the niche (294)

Price for revenge (guilt)

· Confession: You who know me so well….gave utterance to a threat (291)

· A succession of loud and shrill screams …the throat of the chained form (295)

· I re-echoed, I aided…the clamourer grew still (295)

· For the love of God Montressor! Yes, for the love of God! (205)

· My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so (25)

· For half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat! (295)

In James Joyce’s “Araby” the young narrator endures a loss of innocence as he gains insight into his present reality and his bleak future.

Bleak reality (isolation and darkness)

· North Richmond street, being blind (200)

· A priest had died in the back drawing room (200)

· Wild garden behind the house contained a central apple tree…bicycle pump (200)

·

Journey into adulthood

· Mangan’s sister: her figure defined by the half-opened door (200)

· Every morning I lay on the floor….summons to all my foolish blood (200)

· Her name sprang to my lips…running upon the wires (201)

· The light from the lamp…as she stood at ease (201)

· What innumerable follies laid waste…..the page I strove to read (201)

· At nine o’clock I heard my uncles key…(202)

· I took my seat in a third class carriage…bare carriage (202)

Adult awareness

· I could not find any six penny entrance…weary looking man (202)

· Nearly all the stalls were closed and the great part of the hall was in darkness (202)

· Empty conversation (202)

· I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless (203)

· I heard a voice call…now completely dark (203)

· Gazing into the darkness…my eyes burned with anguish and anger (203)