First of all, I'm sorry this is so horribly late!
This month, we read "The Yellow Wallpaper" to evaluate eighteenth century marriages. The short story revealed the emotional toll the stresses of daily life took on a woman in that time period. The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is suffering from a nervous breakdown as a result of her stressful married life. Instead of being treated sympathetically by her husband, he brings her to a "vacation" home, where he keeps his wife trapped in the highest room, with a "nailed-down bed," "barred windows," and dingy yellow wallpaper.
It's crazy to think that a lifestyle, such as being a married woman in the eighteenth century as seen here, can take such an emotional toll on someone. Today, people may feel similar pressures because of the societal influences for them to feel or look or act a certain way. Young people especially are often pressured to change themselves to conform to what is "normal" in society.
Because a majority of the reason this blog is being submitted so late is due to the fact that I was completely consumed by the musical for the past couple weeks, I feel the need to relate this to that. In the show "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," Mrs. Potiphar is the wife of the rich Potiphar. She is expected to be pretty and perfect for her husband. But, despite having all the money she could ever desire, she is not happy with her husband. She is, in fact, so unhappy that she reaches out for the attention of other men. (I realize that doesn't totally correlate with the lesson but I just had to talk about the show a little bit!)
"I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus--but John says the very worst thing I can do is think about my condition…" - Narrator, "the Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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