Literacy work
Two different authors can come up with two various literary works that have a different flow of the story and different themes. However, there is an element in the story that may be distinct, even though the authors do not speak about the same thing. This aspect is distinct in The Yellow Wall Pater, and Squatter, which are two different literary works by entirely different authors. Looking into some of the themes in these works, the aspect of illness and medical practice is evident, as they appear in the subject of women’s subordination in marriage and self-expression, in The Yellow Wallpaper, and the theme of cultural difference in the Squatter.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman brings out the subordination of married women as one of the primary themes. In this theme, the author uses the tale of psychological horror to critique the position that women held in their marriages, mainly as it was practiced by the people who lived during her time. Women were considered as people whose work was to take care of their families and look after their children, as they prepared dinner in time for their husbands to find it ready when they came back home from work. Women were not allowed to participate in any income-earning activity, as they were seen as the weaker sex. In this book, the narrator has a condition referred to as neurasthenia. This condition is characterized by extreme excitability and nervous exhaustion because she has a nervous depression. The prescription, Weir Mitchell, will allow the narrator to resume her usual position in the household, as the narrator says, “John says if I don’t pick up faster, he shall send me to
Weir Mitchell in the fall” (Gilman 4). Therefore, this story by Gilman brings out the fact that the position of women in their marriages made them work so hard in their homes to the extent that they had a nervous breakdown. Women were seen as the weaker sex who would not handle much of the work that was in store for them, and that is why working so hard made them break down to those degrees. The story relates to women with weak nerves, and this relationship is always highlighted in medical practice. The concept of nervousness among females has still dominated the medical theory for so many years, in regards to the position of women in society.
The second theme that the author brings out is the essence of self-expression. The mental constraints that the author places on the narrator drives her crazy. As much as the narrator is married, she has to hide her fears and anxiety to preserve the façade that defines her marriage. The narrator is not mentally excellent, but she has to hide behind her mental state, and this shows that women did not have an opportunity to express themselves. Therefore, they have to hide in their mysteries, even though they are hurting. The narrator is depressed, and because she is a woman, she cannot express herself in that sense. From the beginning of the book, the most intolerable concept of the narrator’s treatment is the mandatory idleness and silence of the “resting cure.” The narrator is forced to be passive and is not allowed to exercise her mind. Besides, she is not allowed to write anything, and she is also warned many times that she should exercise self-control and let it rein in her imagination (Gilman 5). Maybe for the narrator, she felt that the right way she would use to relieve the tension from her mind was through writing. As the narrator says, “I sometimes think that if I were only well enough to write a little, it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me” (Hawthorne 62). The eventual insanity of the narrator is the repression of her power to imagine, and not how she can express herself. Thus, there is a close relationship between the state of mind of the narrator, her place in the society as a woman, and the extent to which she can express herself. It is evident that illness is distinct in this theme, and it brings out how the narrator shows herself through her condition.
In “Squatter” by Rohinton Mistry, the story revolves around cultural differences as well as the experiences that the migrants underwent. Despite its wit and the and the subject matter that relates to the toilet, the author uses the story in the book as a reflection on the drawbacks that relate to migration, and bring up a pessimistic notion of the repercussion of cultural differences on the psyche and identity of people. The distinct theme in Squatter is the issue of cultural differences and the experiences of the immigrants. Mistry demonstrates this issue by asking if it is possible to embrace a foreign culture fully. One of the characters, Sarosh, is not able to adapt to the western toilets, because he is used to squatting, and this aspect demonstrates the difficulties that some migrants have to face. At the same time, they shed their previous experiences, and embrace the culture of the foreign land (Eustace 30). The troubles of Sarosh extend beyond the toilet and affect the other aspects of his life in the foreign area. Sarosh also loses his job, and this indicates the cultural differences that can cause mental instability in a migrant.
Sarosh depicts daily and desperate exertion of sitting on the toilet “to push and grunt, grunt and push, squirming and writhing unavailingly” (Farooque 159). These actions leave him depressed and miserable. With misery and depression, Sarosh has to sink deep in solitude, and this makes him feel sick because he does not have a social life. He is always nervous about the next move that he has to take, and therefore he still fears what will happen to him next. The author has brought out the aspect of losing one’s identity in a foreign land, which may completely disorient the stability of an individual. The disorientation causes some state of illness, which if not looked into keenly, creates a mental breakdown.
From the two stories, the issue of illness and medical practice are distinct in the themes of women and subordination in their marriages, as well as self-expression from, The Yellow Wallpaper, and cultural differences, from Squatter. These aspects show how two different writers can use different themes and point out the same issue. Gilman and Mistry had various books, with an entirely different flow of their stories and different themes, but in some of their themes, illness and medical practice are well represented. With The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator underwent nervous breakdown and sunk into a depression because of her position in the society as a woman, and the daily chores that she had to carry out. With the Squatter, Sarosh goes through the same situation because of the identity that she seeks in a foreign land, and the cultural difference that she has to embrace.
Works Cited
Eustace, John. “Deregulating the Evacuated Body: Rohinton Mistry’s “Squatter.” Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature Canadienne (2003).
Farooque, Umar. ROHINTON MISTRYÕS FICTION: A SOCIO-CULTURAL STUDY. Lulu. Com.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Broadview Anthology of Fiction.” 2004