An Open Mind

As I wrote Parts I-III of the creative interpretation assignment, I was influenced by an aspect of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's style. Writing from the point of view of a journal is very valuable and advantageous for both the narrator and for the audience of a story. For my creative interpretation I chose to write "The Yellow Wallpaper" from the point of view of John's sister, Jennie. I decided to write it, similar to the narrator, in the form of a journal for many reasons. As we witnessed in "The Yellow Wallpaper" the narrator develops an obsession with the wallpaper in her room and this leads her to pure insanity. If it weren't for the fact that she narrated the story from her journal, her progression of obsession with the wallpaper would not make sense to the audience. I chose to write from Jennie's point of view because I felt her character was underdeveloped in the story, and revealing her point of view from a journal allowed for further background and development of her character. It allowed her to gain: a voice/tone, personality, perspective on the narrator and her obsession, and personal thoughts about what was going on with the narrator throughout the story. Journals are of advantage to the narrator and the audience because they are an inside look at what the narrator is experiencing and thinking. Journals are blank pages that allow you to declare freely your thoughts about anything and everything. By reading a story from a journal's perspective, we the audience, gain an inside look at a person's honest emotions and a recollection of their experiences first-hand. A journal is valuable to the narrator of the story also because it allows them to speak freely, without any reservations. Another benefit of a journal, compared to a story whose narrator speaks solely from the first-person point of view, is that journals are current reflections of what has happened. Typically a narrator of a story is only able recall things that happened in the past and their feelings of current. A narrator who narrates from a journal is able to reflect on what happened as it happened and their feelings of current. There are several advantages to writing a story from the narrator's journal's perspective and I came to understand these and admire Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" even more from this creative writing experience.