Use the encyclopedia to research philosophers who have talked about the body/mind question. You will want to look at such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Rene Descartes, and Immanuel Kant. What have each of these philosophers had to say about the body/mind duality?

Read some other stories about women whose relationships with men have been stifling or have somehow stunted them. A couple of good examples are Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre. How does Boyle draw a different picture of a woman's growing independence?

Investigate types of narration and types of narrators. What kind of narrator does Boyle use in "Astronomer's Wife"? Describe the narration in some detail and compare it to other writers' uses of the third-person narration.

Explore the lives of middle-class housewives in Europe in the mid-twentieth...