3. Could the story have taken place in a different place or time?

[Jen]

3. Could the story have taken place in a different place (or at a different time)? Why does the narrator live in a "colonial mansion"? What does the setting mean? Is it important?

[Kristel]

I think the mansion gives a sense of time, maybe a Gothic feel. Yes, I think people could have similar experiences today.

[Pip]

I am not sure that the place could not be replicated, if a woman was forced to spend most of her time in a locked room of ambiguous past uses, especially if the place has a Gothic feel, as Kristel suggests. The time was, however, crucial. It was set in a time when men had a very paternalistic attitude to women, believing that they were prone to hysteria because they had a womb. The narrator's husband and doctor both believed that she should have no say in her treatment and that stimulation was to be reduced to affect a cure.

[Jan]

The story is universal. It's about societal expectations of women. It's relevant to the Victorian era (where "hysterical" women, i.e. those going through the menopause or suffering with premenstrual tension, were often committed to lunatic asylums because their husbands couldn't cope with their moods and women were widely considered weaker in the mind than men), it's relevant to the early 20th century when women who expressed opinions about women being equal to men were imprisoned and vilified by society, and it's relevant to today when girls are raised to be nice, polite, unassertive and women are still largely treated a second class citizens expected to support their husbands in their careers and to sacrifice their own.

The bedroom Jane and her husband share sounds horrific. They have a baby, who is cared for by someone else. Jane feels she can't be with him, so perhaps she has post natal depression. If so, John's choice of the nursery as their bedroom is a cruel one. The presence of bars on the window and the equipment that Jane tells us is gym equipment ("rings and things in the walls") make it seem like a prison, equipped for restraint.

The mansion is remote. John is separating Jane from society, gaining more control over her without observation. Jane can only see the surrounding area through the windows in her room. When she thinks she sees people walking in the area, her husband tells her she is imagining things.