Tonto and the Wallpaper

In class last Thursday we went over the short stories The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie and The Yellow Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. First, the discussed The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven which was about a man and his struggle with being of minority. In detail, he describes the hardships that he endured feeling oppressed by "the white man". Essentially, he fights with himself and his Native American heritage. The fistfight in heaven alludes to the main character quarreling between living the life of a Caucasian male (the lone ranger) and a Native American male (Tonto-the rangers side kick). After speaking about that, we went on to talk about The Yellow Wallpaper which was a macabre story about a woman locked away in a room hysterical after after having her child. The interesting about this story is that one cannot define who is actually crazy, the wife or her husband (a doctor respected by society). What is clear though, is that the doctor continues to have affairs while his wife is locked away and that he babies his wife into thinking that she is more sick than she may actually be. Having read this story before, I have heard variations of who indeed suffered from insanity or manipulation. To this day, I think that the husband is abusing his wife and trying to protect his name by locking her away. However, it is not clear what the writer Gliman's intentions were. Nonetheless, class last Thursday was very thought provoking.