Need by Friday by 8:30pm EST Annotated Bibliography
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SampleAnalyzingLiteratureandEvaluatingSources.docxTEACHER SAMPLE
Analyzing Literature and Evaluating Sources
[A Sample Worksheet to Use in Conjunction with the Critical Thinking Assignment PowerPoint]
Student Name: Jane Doe
Title of the Story: “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
STEP ONE: Below, write a clear and detailed analytical thesis on the theme(s) of your story. This thesis must include the author’s name, the title of the story, an argument on the underlying message (theme) of the work, and a reference to at least one literary element that was crucial in getting that message across (e.g. symbolism).
THESIS:
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman uses symbolism and unreliable first person narration to explore the impacts of the destructive relationship between a patriarchal society and the treatment of mental illness.
STEP TWO: Review course lessons on literary criticism / critical perspectives. Read your story once again and choose one critical perspective that best applies to your specific story. Below, write a minimum of 100 words on which critical perspective you are using to analyze the text, justifying your choice. In your reflection on your critical perspective, you should include specific examples from the text to support your choice.
JUSTIFICATION OF CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE:
To analyze this story, the best critical perspective to use is gender criticism, which also allows for a look into historical context. Gilman’s story is told from the perspective of a woman who, most likely suffering from postpartum depression, is confined to a nursery by her husband, John. As John takes on the role of both head of the household and Jane’s physician, he is in an immense position of power over her. The narrator clearly engages with this power imbalance, mentioning early on this characteristic of their marriage: “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage” (1). Using the gender perspective will aid an analysis of this couple’s dynamic, as well as the several symbols in the story that suggest the confining nature of the overwhelmingly patriarchal society in which the story is set. For instance, the narrator is confined to a nursery with bars on the window, indicating the pressure to be, first and foremost, a mother. There, she begins to envision a woman trapped behind her wallpaper, ultimately identifying herself with this captive and descending further into madness in order to break free (16). These moments, along with the critique of the rest cure for “a slight hysterical tendency,” support the use of the gender perspective, and research will help demonstrate the links to the story’s theme and the historical context.
WORD COUNT: 228
STEP THREE: The Annotated Bibliography Augmented with Critical Thinking
1. Find three peer-reviewed academic sources that you could use to support your interpretation. Possible databases to search include jStor, ProQuest, Literature Resource Center, etc.
2. For EACH of your three sources, you must provide:
A) An MLA-style bibliographical entry
B) A 200-word minimum evaluation and analysis of the source that answer the following questions:
3. Evaluation: Is the source peer-reviewed? Are there any factual errors? Is it relevant to your chosen text? What is a particularly strong quote from the source, and why would it be helpful to your research?
4. Analysis: How does the source relate to the critical perspective you chose in step 2? How does the source support your thesis on the theme(s) of the work of literature? What are some quotes from your work of literature that link to the arguments found in your source, and in what ways do they relate to each other?
Source 1:
Work Citation Entry:
Korb, Rena. "An overview of 'The Yellow Wallpaper'." Gale Online Encyclopedia, Gale, 2018.
Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com.gmclibrary.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/H1420008873/LitRC?u=mill30389&sid=LitRC&xid=9cd5cbdd. Accessed 12 July 2018.
Evaluation and Analysis (200 Words Minimum):
It’s not clear if this source is peer-reviewed, but it is located in a recommended database and written by an author with an advanced degree. Korb’s article is accurate, giving information on the historical and autobiographical contexts of the story. Gilman herself underwent the “rest cure,” a treatment popularized by S. Weir Mitchell: “The symptoms of depression—fatigue, hysteria, crying fits—were thought to stem from the body, and thus were treated through care of the body. Mitchell's treatment for breakdowns of the nervous system, and the treatment he prescribed for Gilman, included total bed rest and isolating the patient from family and familiar surroundings” (Korb). Mitchell is actually alluded to in “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a veiled threat should John’s treatment not succeed, so the information on the history of treatment for depression will help me better analyze John’s characterization and motivations. Korb goes on to explain that Gilman sent Mitchell a copy of her story in the hopes that he’d change his practice. The dangerous disconnect between male doctor and female patient can add to an interpretation of the gender issues at work in this story. Korb’s interpretation of its themes also supports my thesis, as she claims “Gilman's narrator is trapped in the home, in her maternal body, and in the text she has created for herself, which is the only escape she can find.” This argument can aid my interpretation of the symbolism used throughout the story, particularly in describing the environment in which the narrator is confined and the language she uses to describe the damage that the room’s previous occupants left behind: “I never saw such ravages as the children have made here” (6). This is not an idealized portrayal of motherhood that might have been expected from a woman in Gilman’s time. The link between this attitude towards children and the men’s perception of the narrator’s mental state can also be explored in a gender reading of the story.
WORD COUNT: 280
Source 2:
Work Citation Entry:
Treichler, Paula A. “Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in ‘The Yellow
Wallpaper.’” Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, vol. 3, no. 1/2, 1984, pp. 61–77. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/463825. Accessed 12 July 2018.
Evaluation and Analysis (200 Words Minimum):
In this factually accurate peer-reviewed article, Treichler focuses particularly on one aspect of the rest cure prescribed to the narrator: she is forced to give up her writing. “Learning to monitor her own speech, she develops an artificial feminine self who reinforces the terms of her husband's expert diagnosis: this self attempts to speak reasonably and in ‘a very quiet voice,’ refrains from crying in his presence, and hides the fact that she is keeping a journal. This male- identified self disguises the true underground narrative: a confrontation with language” (61). This observation will aid an analysis of the power imbalance between the married couple and the way the narrator and author challenge this. Writing is not only a key form of self-expression (the denial of which seems at odds with the communication needed in an effective doctor/patient relationship and marriage), but is also one of the limited socially acceptable professions for women at that time. The narrator even refers to her writing as “work,” and places that word in quotation marks as if to suggest a mocking tone from her husband (Gilman 1). The control John has over her is key to a gender reading of the story. Treichler does, however, present an interpretation I disagree with, which could be used in an essay to introduce my own critical argument. Treichler “interpret[s] the wallpaper to be women's writing or women's discourse, and the woman in the wallpaper to be the representation of women that becomes possible only after women obtain the right to speak. In this reading, the yellow wallpaper stands for a new vision of women -one which is constructed differently from the representation of women in patriarchal language” (64). Although I understand the spirit of this interpretation, the language is troublesome when you consider that the narrator rips the wallpaper to shreds. It may be that the wallpaper stands for the domestic sphere women were pressured to confine themselves in, and the destruction of the wallpaper is part of the birth of the new woman.
WORD COUNT: 338
Source 3:
Work Citation Entry:
the Shifting Light of Scholarship.” PMLA, vol. 111, no. 1, 1996, pp. 52–65. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/463133. Accessed 12 July 2018.
Evaluation and Analysis (200 Words Minimum):
In this factually accurate peer-reviewed article, Julie Bates Dock, Daphne Ryan Allen, Jennifer Palais and Kristen Tracy primarily give an overview of the history of gender criticism written on “The Yellow Wallpaper.” This is an important source to review as it casts light on potential critical biases in feminist readings of the story since the 1970s. As they explain, “a study of the textual, publication, and reception histories of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ demonstrates how shifts in criticism from one era to another cast different light on the evidence sur- rounding the story” (53). The article also indicates variants in different publications, such as omissions of words, sentences, breaks, etc., that could have an impact on an analysis of the story depending on which variant I’ve read. Here is an example from the article:
The first important variant, and the one most resonant with meaning, comes in the fifth paragraph. After declaring that there is "something queer" about the house, the narrator remarks, "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage." Texts that follow Lane's, which reproduces the 1933 Golden Book version, print the following: "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that." Omitting "in marriage" radically transforms the line. Why would one "expect that"? Does John laugh at the narrator because she is genuinely funny? because he thinks her a silly little woman? because she feels the house is creepy? because John is a jerk? The reader cannot know. (56)
While this passage would likely not make it into my essay, it does add weight to my earlier use of that Gilman quote in an in-depth interpretation of the way the narrator views and characterizes her marriage, and marriage in general. This article also highlights an issue of accuracy that could influence further research on this story, and that has to do with critics’ claims about the initial reader reaction to “The Yellow Wallpaper”: “Jean E. Kennard contends that a feminist reading could not emerge until audiences grasped certain literary conventions-particularly those associated with ‘patriarchy, madness, space, [and] quest’ (78)-but her premise that ‘no earlier reader saw the story as in any way positive’ (75) obscures the tensions and complexities in Gilman's text, particularly the gender constructions in play between the story and its original readers” (60). If other critical sources using a gender approach provide similar misrepresentations or generalizations about the original reception of the story, that could skew an argument on society’s views towards early feminist ideas around the time of composition and publication, so I’d want to keep this article in mind.
WORD COUNT: 431
