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Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”: Tools for Interpretation
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a leader of the late nineteenth-century feminist movement in America, and a key theorist. The ideas presented in her book Women and Economics invite comparison with contemporary insights into women’s social and economic positioning. See below for a list of background and critical reading about “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which, together with her feminist utopia Herland, is Gilman’s best-known work. (more…)
Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms
After a brief introduction to the experiences that Hemingway drew on in writing A Farewell to Arms, this account approaches the novel through a summary of its structure and a consideration of the following themes and ideas:
- War and heroism;
- Love and sex (sex as defiance–of convention and oppressive morality);
- Relative importance given to men and women (the treatment of gender);
- Definitions of masculinity, including relationships among men and masculine sensitivities.