Short Stories by Salwa Bakr

The collection of short stories written by Bakr are outrageous and extremely frustrating. I got so horribly depressed and angry after reading them, especially since the last section reads: "her own voice, weak and hoarse and devoid of any beauty, clarity and strength. She contemplated herself again. Her face was her face of old,.... She gave a bitter smile, shaking her head with sorrow." I find Bakr to be an extremely talented writer. She has plenty of symbolism in her well-thought-out stories. Although they are horribly depressing, I'm glad she wrote them, so that readers all over the world could read them.

"Thirty-one Beautiful Green Trees" and "That Beautiful Undiscovered Voice" are very similar to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper." In "Thirty-one..." and "Yellow Wallpaper" both women are trapped within their surroundings, give themselves a voice through writing, and seek some sort of refuge in nature. The parallels between "Undiscovered Voice" and "Yellow Wallpaper" are the subtly oppressive husbands, who "only out of affection" lock up their wives, and with that their wives' voices, creativity, and independence.

When teaching "The Yellow Wallpaper" in a High School English classroom, it might be a good idea to use these stories in juxtaposition, in order to clarify the fact that the concepts discussed in Gilman's short story are not issues of the past, but rather, still very present in today's world. Many people seem to believe that fighting for women's rights and dignity is a thing of the past. Clearly, that's not true.