Carmel Magazine

C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G / S U M M E R 2 0 1 5 87 no autonomy and few options aside from moth- erhood. As their collective boredom and frustra- tion heightened, it was met with the sweeping diagnosis of "a nervous disorder" or "hysteria." Instead of ferreting out the source of malaise and depression, their male counterparts saw them as temporarily mad, and those who were financially able, sent their disenchanted wives for the rest cure. Mitchell's popular treatment incar- cerated women in hospitals for weeks at a time, infantilizing them, forcing "rest" by restraining them to beds, restricting reading, writing, or any intellectual stimulation. They used bedpans and were fed mashed up foods fit for infants. It's no wonder that when they were sent home to resume domestic life, a large number of them appeared to be "cured." They were probably just relieved to be upright, ambulatory, freed finally from the barbaric "treatment". The prescription they were sent home with was to avoid all work other than domestic, particularly discouraging any creative pursuits—"…to never touch pen, brush or pencil again." Gilman says she followed the advice for three months and nearly went mad. Then she wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" as an indict- ment of Dr. Mitchell and as a warning to her peers to stay away from his so-called "cure." In the story, a woman undergoing the rest cure becomes obsessed with the pattern on the wall- paper in the room where she's held cap- tive. Restricted from all reading, this woman, hungry for intellectual stimulation, eventually invents in the wallpaper, a text, an unfolding story—another woman seemingly trapped behind the pattern, desperately trying to get out. The sexism this story brings to light was ground- breaking in 1892. I highly recommend not only reading "The Yellow Wallpaper," but some of the scholarship on it, as it took its place in women's litera- ture and feminist theory. The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison Everyone's heard of Toni Morrison. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 1996. She's been a professor at Yale, Rutgers, SUNY Albany, and Princeton. Everyone hasn't heard of"The Bluest Eye" her first novel, about a black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who becomes obsessed by a desire for blue eyes, a desire to be other than who she is. Morrison utilizes Pecola's fixation to examine racial self-loathing, or racism perpetuated from within the race. Morrison's use of excerpts from the "Dick, Jane & Sally" read- ers of the '50s and '60s illustrates skillfully the white-dominant culture that fosters Pecola's longing, and the self- loathing that leads to her demise. "Quiet as it's kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941. We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father's baby that the marigolds did not grow. But so deeply con- cerned were we with the health and safe delivery of Pecola's baby we could think of nothing but our own magic: if we planted the seeds, and said the right words over them, they would blossom and every- thing would be all right." "It was a long time before my sister and I admitted to ourselves that no green was going to spring from our seeds. For years I thought my sister was right: it was my fault. I had planted them too far down in the earth. It never occurred to either of us that the earth itself might have been unyielding. We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of black dirt just as Pecola's father had dropped his seeds in his own plot of black dirt. Our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust or despair. What is clear now is that of all of that hope, fear, lust, love, and grief, nothing remains but Pecola and the unyielding earth. Cholly Breedlove is dead; our innocence too. The seeds shriveled and died; her baby too." Like Gilman's story and Chopin's book, Morrison's novel wasn't recognized as the clas- sic it has become until years later. About this Morrison says, "The initial publication of 'The Bluest Eye' was like Pecola's life: dismissed, trivi- alized, misread." Pick up all three books locally at Pilgrim's Way Community Bookstore (on Dolores near 5th) or River House Books (The Crossroads). You won't be disappointed. Melanie Bishop's young adult novel, "My So-Called Ruined Life," was recently released by Torrey House Press. Bishop brings to the Monterey Peninsula 22 years of college-level teaching in creative writing, and 18 years as founding editor of Alligator Juniper, a national literary magazine. She offers courses, writing retreats and editing services in Carmel-by-the-Sea. For more information, go to www.melaniebishopwriter.wordpress.com

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