The following week we dived right into reading short stories and exploring the author’s perspective on how they deliver their messages through their stories. One such author-Charlotte Perkins Stetson- has truly left a mark on me with her short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” in it she details the descent of the narrator into madness through epistolary writing. This effective form of letter-writing allowed me to feel yet not feel what the narrator experienced, it allowed a small glimpse into her soul and what she truly felt. Her view of a woman stuck behind a wall-paper was in fact just a mirror…the narrator had been bound by the males around her, she did as they said and she could only be herself when alone. Stetson, really probed at my mind with this one in that it showed how those struggling often have to hide their true selves for others. I hate that very much, I hate the fact that a human has to hide and shun themselves because others don’t deem it worthy of actual attention. Stetson expressed freedom in such an eloquent way, through the narrator she exposed the innate lack of freedom we are born with, the slavery of judgment. We are enslaved not by our own minds but by each other’s minds, we fear and hold back our true expressions in hopes to present our self in the best light possible.

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