Lonely+=+windows




 * What I would tell the window**

Small opening, you exist simply to let in light. Opaque, translucent, you are nothing but glass held in place by wood, framed. Glass, so fragile, too easy to break - yet pressing my palm to your pane, you are cold, hard. A surface that will not move, forcing me to see only what you allow.

Like the lens of a camera, you are selective, letting in only light, shadow, and images that fit within your frame. Like the barred doors of a prison, you are a barrier, keeping anyone behind you from feeling sun and wind on skin, hearing birds call from trees.

You may be nothing but glass and frame. Clear. Smooth. Blind. But here, where I stand, the outside pushes past your edges, blurred as if nothing exists.

~ Erinn Bentley

> > > //**Note from the author: I wrote this poem and took these photos in an attempt to better understand the perspective of the narrators portrayed in "A Souvenir of Japan" and "The Yellow Wallpaper." Both narrators, who are trapped indoors, often talk of viewing the world through their windows. In these stories, the windows seem less a connection to the outside world, but rather a barrier keeping these women from entering that world. The poem tries to capture that "trapped" feeling. I decided to address the window directly because the window seems like a character in these stories. I chose these photographs of windows because they each show how a window can look like the barred doors of a prison cell. In the arched window, the window panes appear like bars. The photo showing the blinds looks even more like a prison. Finally, the photo of the chair in front of the window represents the perspective of these narrators. I imagine the narrators sitting in such a position, always looking out the window into the world they cannot enter. ~ Erinn**// __Works Cited:__ Carter, Angela. "A Souvenir of Japan." __The Norton Introduction to Literature__. Shorter 9th ed. Eds. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays.New York: Norton, 2006, 266-272.
 * "The word for wife, //okusan//, means the person who occupies the inner room and rarely, if ever, comes out of it" (Carter 267).
 * "It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows...the windows are barred" (Gilman 514).

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." __The Norton Introduction to Literature__. Shorter 9th ed. Eds. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton 2006, 513-524.


 * This page was created by Erinn Bentley.**