1a) Describe the similarities between the stories regarding the medical treatments and their effects on the protagonists. Refer to phrases, lines, or passages from the stories in your description.
1b) Describe the similarities between the stories when it comes to the unreliability of the physical world, especially people, places, or things that prove to be something other than what they seem at first. Find passages from both texts that deal with the emphasis on things that can or cannot be seen—and think about the implications this has regarding the “certainties” of truth, proof, or evidence.
2a) How does the infantilization of the female protagonists critique the institutions of marriage, domesticity and motherhood? Refer to phrases, lines, or passages from the stories in your answer.
2b) Think about the ways in which the stories build a sense of claustrophobia and paranoia. Find passages that depict the physical or mental confinement of the female protagonists as well as passages in which they attempt to break free from these constraints. What do these passages seem to suggest about women’s ability to break away from the domestic sphere in the late-nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries?