Abbe's Attic

(This 900-word essay is a literary analysis of the setting of the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It draws a parallel between the main character's deteriorating mental condition and her perception of the room where she's imprisoned.) The setting of “The Yellow Wallpaper” could be described as a series of concentric circles, beginning with the grounds and proceeding inward to the house itself, the bedroom, and finally, the titular wallpaper. The wallpaper receives the most attention, both in the story and in interpretations of the story, but the bedroom also deserves the reader’s attention. Is it really an innocent place, a room where children once lived and played? Clues scattered throughout the story suggest it was not. This reality emerges in step with the narrator’s mental breakdown and show that the room is literally a prison cell and the narrator isn’t its first unwilling guest. At the beginning of the story, the narrator...

The Westboro Baptist Church, led by preacher Fred Phelps, became famous—or infamous—by protesting funerals. WBC members wave signs and shout slogans, the best-known of which is "God hates fags." This is usually supplemented with other eye-catching phrases specific to the death upon which they are capitalizing, such as "God killed your sons," "God sent the shooter," "God sent the IEDs," "God blew up the shuttle," or "Thank God for dead soldiers,"  In 2007, the family of Matthew Snyder, a Marine killed in Iraq, sued Phelps and his church for inflicting emotional distress on them by staging one of these notorious protests. The trial court found in favor of the Snyder family, but the WBC appealed. The case, Snyder v. Phelps, eventually reached the Supreme Court, which decided eight-to-one that the protests were protected by the First Amendment. How could the court have reached such a decision? As a believer in God's i...

I believe in the joy of anticipation. I believe at least half the pleasure of every good thing in life is looking forward to it. Anticipation is the smell of warm bread, promising that the loaf is worth waiting for, and the held breath while the present is unwrapped. It's making plans and lists with a tremble of excitement. Anticipation is the spiritual creation before the physical.  There's no better season for anticipation than Christmas because it starts early and builds up gradually. September cools and fades into October. Halloween candy and decorations fill the shelves at Wal-Mart, there's a giant cardboard box of pumpkins in front of the grocery store, and every autumnal bit of it sets visions of sugarplums dancing in my head. As holidays go, Halloween is fine, but its real virtue is as a signal that Christmas is coming. The excitement builds like a balloon being slowly filled with helium until it lifts me off the ground.  Life is full of wonderful thin...

My name is Abbe Hoggan. What else do you need to know about me? Allow me to answer that question in convenient list form. (I don't like having my picture taken. Enjoy this lovely photo of my favorite flowers instead.) (Photo by Peter Bucks at Unsplash) I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of the world. I hope that belief shows in how I live every day. I’ve been married for thirty-two years to the funniest, kindest, smartest, most supportive man in the world. I’m sure your spouse is great, but mine is better. Sorry. We have five silly, smart, weird, infuriating, adorable, good-hearted, ridiculous children, two daughters-in-law who must wonder what they’ve gotten themselves into, and a perfect grandson. I graduated from Brigham Young University – Idaho in 2020 without ever setting foot on campus. I read. I write. I have unreasonably strong opinions about television. My favorite gen...