Thursday May 19th:

Anne Bradstreets poems have key phrases and select lines that indicate having social freedom was an issue for her. In the poem "Prologue", Anne states that "If I prove well, it won't advance, They'll say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance" and  "Men can do best, and Women know it well, Yet grant some small acknowledgement of ours". After reading those lines I can assume that Anne found it very hard to find what she had accomplished to be grade a or other people found what Anne had accomplished to be just by luck and she wasn't talented enough to accomplish these doings on a day to day basis. Also you can conclude that it was known to men that only they were advanced enough to have quality doings rather than women also being qualified. In “The Author to Her Book" Anne tells about having a child taken away from her and that she feels as if her body has deteriorated and defects have come into place.  I take this poem as if the defects she is seeing are those mentally and not physically because the child was a part of her and without the child she is not able to properly function. She has created an illusion that if something valuable and prized as a child is taken from you, your whole body will suffer because that item/thing "person" was a part that completed you. The poem “To my Dear and Loving Husband" Anne elaborates on the ability of having a great and loving husband that she loves more than gold itself.  I think that the only real freedom Anna has was being able to pick her husband that she loves so dear. My reasoning for this is that she talks about how degrading she feels because nothing she does is ever acceptable by man and that fact that a child was taken away from her unwilling, that doesn't come across to me as having freedom.

                “Rip Van Winkle” is a masterpiece written by Washington Irving. Rip travels off to escape the world and finds himself in a different setting after taking many sips of beverage that puts him in a deep sleep. Once he woke Rip found with things much happier than what he remember, “birds were hopping and twittering among the bushed, and the eagle was wheeling aloft…” After returning to his home he finds everything dilapidated and old and thinks no one knows who he is. In the end people still do remember him and it excited him because before he left he considered himself as a  nobody but after returning he sees that people do remember him and that he’s important. The freedom that Rip wanted to obtain was to be known rather than just be something of the past- found it very hard to focus and find the true meaning of this story-

                 “The Yellow Wallpaper” is an extraordinary short story. The lady portrayed in the story is sick and her brother as well as husband plays it off as she is completely fine and it’s all in her head. As she sits upstairs in her room that is surrounded by windows she depicts her surroundings. She makes many statements about the wallpaper one being, “ It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following…. Uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide”. She also makes other accusations at the room and picks apart other things until there is nothing left of them because she has nothing else to do to keep her mind busy. She wanted more than anything to escape the room but there was always different reasons and obstacles in her way, in the end she finally proved her husband John and Jennie wrong and escaped the room.

These three articles show different examples of how people see the freedoms they do and don’t have.  I think that these different stories/poems are very closely relative because all of them tell ones on story of wanting freedom. Though the freedoms may be completely different, not everyone is faced with the same things daily so what one thing someone might cherish as a freedom may be completely different that one someone else cherishes. 

After reading these I mostly connect to "The Yellow Wallpaper", though I'm not sick I find myself from time to time pulling apart different things when I'm bored. I find myself daydreaming about randomness things that have no meaning. I assume the reason for this is because I like to be busy so I find ways to become busy.