Revision Workshops

The revisions today in class helped me a lot on my literary paper.  I know we were supposed to read them out loud, but it was too loud so Libby and I decided to read them to ourselves.  It helped much more because when reading out loud I always space out and forget certain things the reader is saying.  One thing that was difficult was my computer didn't save my changes on my literary paper so I had some of the same mistakes which was frustrating.  Overall, I like doing revision workshops because it helps improve my papers.  I also like having different people revise so there are different corrections on each revision.

Thanksgiving!!!

I.love.Thanksgiving.  I have an obsession with pumpkin pie! Last year I ate an entire pie. I was pretty proud of myself :) I also lalalove mash potatoes and green bean casserole!! I don't really like turkey... I would rather eat my pumpkin pie than eat turkey.  I'm really excited for Thanksgiving because my family and I always watch Elf and Home Alone: Lost in New York.  My all time two favorite Christmas movies.  I also am very excited because thats when Christmas songs start to play on the radio.  I mean I already started listening to Christmas music after Hallowwen but whatever.  One thing I'm not so pumped about... snow.  I mean Omaha gets plenty of snow but Verm takes it to another level. 

Literary Outline

I really liked this outline.  It helped me lay out all my information.  One thing I had a problem with was fitting everything on it.  But most of it was quotes, so I would just go back and find the page number.  This outline really helped me understand the organization of a literary analysis.  One thing I am struggling with in my paper is putting the cultural, and my story, and quotes altogether so it flows easily. 

Thesis Statement

"The Yellow-Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story that takes place during the 1900's.  During this time, women were inferior to men.  The narrator portrays herself as an ill, unhappy housewife.  This represents women's fear towards men.

Reading Critically

I like the reading critically a lot. It helps me understand the story much better.  I actually like doing it first instead of going back and reading it because then it gives me a chance to stop reading and really comprehend what is going on in the story.  For "The Yellow Wallpaper", I found a lot more symbols in the stories but it also made me question certain things too.  Like throughout the story I think her husband was cheating on her with Jennie, but I'm not sure.  I have several questions for this story.  One thing I struggle with is highlighting everything because then highlighting looses its significance.  So I really try not to highlight everything I see and only highlight certain items that stand out to me.  It takes a much longer time doing this, but I think in the end it really doesn't because you don't have to go back as much in the story to find what you are looking for, and overall you get a much better understanding of the story.

Symbols

A White Heron
-Cow: Milk
-White: Peace, shows the importance of the bird, makes Syllvia realize how beautiful the bird is
-Red: Syllvia is scared of this color, describes a boy with red on his face chasing her and how it scared her
-Tree: Symbolizes life, when Syllvia keeps climbing the tree she keeps having to go farther and farther up because she still isn't done. Just like in life when you think you are done there is still something left to do.
-Hunter: Syllvia hides from him like he wants to kill her, also symbolizes hope because if she tells him where the bird is, she wouldn't have to worry about money
-When the tree splits into 2: its the two decision Syllvia can take, tell the hunter where the bird is, or not.
The Yellow Wall-Paper
-Yellow: symbolizes how the narrator is sick
-Windows: trapped, as much as she wants to be apart of the world her husband won't let her
-Wallpaper:how men tortured women, made them do things they didn't want to do, showing unequaliness between men and women
-Sickness: how men ignored women when trying to search for equality, she would tell her husband something was wrong with her and he would tell her she was fine
-I found when reading this story, almost all symbols have to relate to how limited women were during this time period.  All of the symbols have to do with how men didn't care what women thought and basically brainwashed their wives so the husbands could feel powerful.