Comparing the Techniques Used by the Writers to Create a Sense of Fear and Tension in The Black Cat, The Red Room and The Yellow Wallpaper
Short stories like 'The Black Cat', 'The Red Room' and 'The Yellow
wallpaper', which were all written during the pre-1914's, were used as
popular entertainment during the 19th-20th century. At that time there
was no television. Today, if we wanted to be entertained by something
with similar horrific content we could watch a film on TV, however, in
the late 19th century this role had to be filled with the short story.
The social context at the time was male dominant and a woman was
expected to stay at home looking after the children and cleaning while
the man went to work to bring home the money. This is shown especially
in 'The Yellow Wallpaper' because the man dominates his wife by
locking her up. The gothic genre was used a lot in these three stories
to add to the fear and tension portrayed, especially in 'The Red Room'
where the writer explains the setting as being 'old and scary'.
'The Red Room', by H. G. Wells, is about a man who goes into a gothic
castle with an open mind to see whether the suspicions of it being
haunted were true but comes out knowing that there is no ghost, people
just get scared of fear itself. 'The Black Cat' by Edgar Allan Poe, is
about a caring, animal loving man whose alcoholic behaviour causes him
to become cruel to his pets, especially his favourite, a black cat
named Pluto. 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is
about a woman who is shut up in her bedroom by her husband because she
suffers from a nervous condition. She becomes paranoid that there is a
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stop and take a breath. For example, she says 'to jump out the window
would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong to even try.
Besides I wouldn't do it. Of course not', in that quote although there
is sufficient punctuation it seems as though the narrator says it
really fast and says it all in one breath in short, sharp sentences.
In 'The Black Cat' Poe is purposely ambiguous to build tension. He
often says one thing that could mean something else. One example of
this is at the beginning of the story, he says 'my wife… made frequent
allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded black cats as
witches in disguise' he then dismisses it by saying 'not that she was
ever serious upon his point and I mention the matter at all for no
better reason than that it happens, just now to be remembered'.
When we compare contrast the two stories "The Yellow Wallpaper" vs. "The Story of an Hour”. If we first look at the similarities that they have, they are both about women who are controlled by their husbands, and who desired freedom. But both women had different reasons for their freedom. It sounds as though both husbands had control over their lives and both women had an illness. But I don’t believe the husbands knew their wives were so miserable. So as we look at the lives of women back in the 19th century time they have the stereotypical trend of being a house wife, staying at home taking care of kids, the house, and aiding the husband in his work. Being in charge of the household makes women have many responsibilities to take care of but still women are often looked down upon and men who often thinks a women’s say is unimportant. The two short stories are about two women who have husbands that successful and the women who feel suffocated by their lack of ability to live their own lives or make their own decisions. The two stories present similar plots about two wives who have grown to feel imprisoned in their own marriages.
The Tell Tale Heart, written by Edgar Allan Poe, and Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock were both formidable, revolutionary and horrifying creations to the audience’s of their times and to some extent, still are today. Hitchcock drew audiences in into his work by utilizing certain camera angles, mise-en-scene and diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. However, Edgar Allan Poe used a variety of literary techniques such as varying sentence structure, imagery and irony to draw his readers in. While these two masterpieces are unique in terms of content, both of them explore a prominent theme, fear.
In comparison between The Yellow Wallpaper and If I Were a Man by Charlotte Perkins Gilman there is a clear picture created of a woman coming into her own. Both stories weave a tale of two women, although very different they share a common likeness in the fact they are both entrapped by their husbands. For one it was being trapped in a room for one it was monetary restrictions. Their bondage, although seemingly built from love and protection, only seems to serve as a prison within their minds.
The story begins when she and her husband have just moved into a colonial mansion to relieve her chronic nervousness. An ailment her husband has conveniently diagnosed. The husband is a physician and in the beginning of her writing she has nothing but good things to say about him, which is very obedient of her. She speaks of her husband as if he is a father figure and nothing like an equal, which is so important in a relationship. She writes, "He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction." It is in this manner that she first delicately speaks of his total control over her without meaning to and how she has no choices whatsoever. This control is perhaps so imbedded in our main character that it is even seen in her secret writing; "John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition...so I will let it alone and talk about the house." Her husband suggests enormous amounts of bed rest and no human interaction at all. He chooses a "prison-like" room for them to reside in that he anticipates will calm our main character even more into a comma like life but instead awakens her and slowly but surely opens her eyes to a woman tearing the walls down to freedom.
Although both protagonists in the stories go through a psychological disorder that turns their lives upside down, they find ways to feel content once again. In Charlotte Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," a nervous wife, an overprotective husband, and a large, damp room covered in musty wallpaper all play important roles in driving the wife insane. Gilman's masterful use of not only the setting, both time and place, but also of first person point of view, allows the reader to process the woman's growing insanity. The narrator develops a very intimate relationship with the yellow wallpaper throughout the story, as it is her constant companion. Her initial reaction to it is a feeling of hatred; she dislikes the color and despises the pattern, but does not attribute anything peculiar to it. Two weeks into their stay she begins to project a sort of personality onto the paper, so she studies the pattern more closely, noticing for the first time “a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design” (Gilman). At this point, her madness is vague, but becoming more defined, because although the figure that she sees behind the pattern has no solid shape, she dwells on it and
For a writer, stylistic devices are key to impacting a reader through one’s writing and conveying a theme. For example, Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates use of these stylistic techniques in his short stories “The Masque of the Red Death” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The former story is about a party held by a wealthy prince hiding from a fatal disease, known as the Red Death. However, a personified Red Death kills all of the partygoers. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is about a man who visits his mentally ill childhood companion, Roderick Usher. At the climax of the story, Roderick’s twin sister, Madeline, murders him after he buries her alive. Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories employ the stylistic decisions of symbolism, dream-like imagery, and tone to affect the reader by furthering understanding of the theme and setting and evoking emotion in readers.
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of the Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is viewed from a woman’s perspective of the nineteenth century. They showed the issues on how they were confined to the house. That they were to be stay at home wives and let the husband earn the household income. These stories are both written by American women and how their marriage was brought about. Their husbands were very controlling and treated them more like children instead of their wives. In the nineteenth century their behavior was considered normal at the time. In “The Story of the Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” both women explore their issues on wanting to be free of the control of their husband.
Just about everyone can voice their opinions on a film that viewed as we all do after leaving the theatre. It may be found to be useful when a friend or individual is interested in seeing the film themselves. However, I believe the only way that you could understand a film is by analyzing the film beyond the average person. When one begins to analyze they begin to develop an understanding of the film and may grow to love the film. The director Hitchcock is a fairly well known director. He has directed many different films from Vertigo to Psycho that are found to be popular with the viewers. In this paper I am going to analyze certain elements that spoke out to me during the film. Those elements that spoke to me the most during the film was the lighting techniques, camera movement, and symbols.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman describes the experiences of a woman during a summer in which her husband has found them a large, beautiful house to stay in. This woman, however, feels as if she is ill, but her husband, who is a doctor, tells her that there is nothing wrong with her and that she only has depression, which she comes to believe. Her husband chooses to make her sleep in her own room, alone, upstairs in the house, which used to be a room for children in which the windows were barred for safety. The woman, which is the narrator, writes her whole experience, even though her husband does not approve of it. During the course of the summer, her husband attempts to keep her locked in her room because he feels that she will recover quicker if she stays in her room alone. He even will not let her go downstairs, which she does when he is gone to take a lonely walk through the garden. She believes everything he does is for her, and through the course of the story he holds her back, as she cannot talk to him nor can she freely choose what she wants to do.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" contain many similarities. They both have the common theme of the deterioration of the main character's life and mind, as well as the theme of the ostracism of outcasts in society. They also both deal with the main characters gaining a freedom through the demise of their previous lives.
In the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; a central conflict centers between the narrator and her husband, John. The husband uses his power as a doctor to control her; he forces her to behave how he thinks a sick woman should. The husband can be seen as a father figure who overprotects her and makes decisions for her.
Women have traditionally been known as the less dominant sex. Through history women have fought for equal rights and freedom. They have been stereotyped as being housewives, and bearers of children. Only with the push of the Equal Rights Amendment have women had a strong hold on the workplace alongside men. Many interesting characters in literature are conceived from the tension women have faced with men. This tension comes from men, society, in general, and within a woman herself. Two interesting short stories, “The Yellow Wall-paper" and “The Story of an Hour," focus on a woman’s fix near the turn of the 19th century. This era is especially interesting
...he stopped being the protector and the only rational thinker in the family. In this short story, the men had power over women and they undermined them. The narrator insisted to her husband that she was sick, but he never took her serious instead, he confined her in an isolated place away from home and her child. Eventually both husband and wife loose because, they are trapped in fixed gender roles and could not go against them.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Tell-Tale Heart." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1999. 33-37.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is the story of a woman spiralling into madness whilst her physician husband refuses to acknowledge that she has a "real" problem. On the other hand The Black Cat by Edgar Alan Poe is about a man who is initially fond of cats however as the plot progresses he becomes an alcoholic making him moody and violent, which lead him to torture and kills the animals and eventually also his wife. In Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Black Cat," symbolism is used to show the narrator’s capacity for violence, madness, and guilt .The recurring theme present in both these stories is that the main protagonists claim that they suffer or have been taken over by a form of madness. In this essay I shall examine the various symbolism used by the writer's to represent madness.