Suvidha Laharika
On 29th of December, we the members of Quills Literary
Club met to review Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow
Wallpaper.
The meeting began with an exceptional PowerPoint presentation by
Juveria Tabasum. She gave a brief introduction about the story and presented
her critical views on the work and the author’s creativity. She also added other
information like how the story has been interpreted by feminist critics as a
condemnation of the androcentric rule in olden days,
symbolization of various images in the story, and the possibilities of the
story as psychoanalytic narration.
After that all the
members offered their individual opinions on the short story. Almost everyone
had a common view. The reader’s agreed that when they began to read the story
they predicted it to be a horror story or murder mystery where the clue or a secret
revealing the climax will be related to the yellow wallpaper but the end was
completely unpredictable.
As the conversation
continued, there was discourse about various things that were striking like
choosing the yellow wallpaper as a main theme to depict narrator’s mind, the
dialogues between narrator and her husband and especially the highly symbolic tragic
ending.
These topics led to
the discussion of ideas of contemporary interest. The subjects started from
feminism to expectations of having a female dominated society. Members of the
club debated and argued about on different viewpoints in Feminism in India. For example, some said feminism is need to
change the society which supports only men whereas some said feminism is needed
to bring men and women to an equal status and some concluded that fancy slogans
of feminism be replaced by practical solutions for women in trouble.
It was not just a
head to head debate but also a heart to heart talk on different forms of violence
and oppression on women. Student members of the club also shared how the pressure
to get married was obstructing their dreams to become successful professionals
and happy individuals.
In the end, we all
were happy about the meet. It was very well coordinated; The beauty of it was that
we talked about a novel written by an author who was caged and kept away from
pen and paper and we girls were fulfilling her dreams by utilizing our freedom
of expression in the 21st century. The meet was a wish come true in
the truest sense of the term.
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