Week 6 - Appleman Ch. 5

Chapter Five - A Lens of One's Own: Of Yellow Wallpaper and Beautiful Little Fools

"Theory provides us with a way of recognizing and naming other visions while promoting our own ways of seeing. Theory helps us recognize the essential quality of other visions: how they shape and inform the way we read texts, how we respond to others, how we live our lives. Theory makes the invisible visible, the unsaid said. (Appleman 75)"

I liked the application of the Feminist lens to Hamlet. It was interesting to see the interpretations of Gertrude and Ophelia traditionally and with the Feminist lens.

I think the application of the Feminist lens to The Yellow Wallpaper would be an activity I could apply within my classroom. I've read it many times, but when using the Feminist lens I've taken much more from the story and gained a greater understanding of the main character.

"The goal of teaching theory is not to produce discrete interpretations of individual artifacts; it is to help interpret, understand, and respond to our lived experiences. (Appleman 91)"

"Feminist Criticism is a political act whose aim is not simply to interpret the world but change it, by changing the consciousness of those who read and their relation to what they read. (Appleman, 93).

I really like the idea of applying the Feminist lens to texts with a strong female character base. It allows us to reconsider their part within the story, and maybe gain a better understanding of the text as a whole.