Compare And Contrast The Yellow Wallpaper And Half A Day

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The Comparison of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Half a Day”

Upon reading “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins and “Half a Day” by Naguib Mahfouz, one can infer that the two share many synonymities, although the authors are of different nationalities and they wrote the stories decades apart. The first comparison is among the themes displayed in both stories and how they are dynamic and thought provoking. Moreover, the protagonists develop for the worst and encounter similar events that add to their personalities. Lastly, the setting adds depth to both pieces by unravelling and exposing details as the stories progress which enables both stories to portray unique feelings. The two short stories are equally sumptuous and share many attributes …show more content…

“The Yellow Wallpaper” strongly displays a theme encompassing the loss of sanity by placing the protagonist in a man versus self conflict that climatically leads to her losing her mind. To emphasize details, Perkins uses plenty of description written from a first person point of view that lets the reader obtain a deeper understanding of her insanity. For example, “the front pattern does move—and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!” (343). The protagonist is slowly becoming insane and started to believe that a woman was genuinely behind the yellow wallpaper in her room, shaking and bending the pattern, trying to escape. In addition to these insightful journal entries, Perkins gives the reader information into less personal issues. To elaborate, there are a few examples “it is very seldom that mere ordinary people… secure ancestral halls for the summer” (331) and “sleeping under this paper for three months” (344). Instead of being properly treated, in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the protagonist is stripped of an opportunity to recover healthily and is driven into a deeper state of insanity. The protagonist is kept in her room for three months and longer because of an illness that could have easily been treated. All things considered, she lost her sanity and suffered for months in her little room. On the other hand, “Half a Day” presents the shared theme of loss and suffering through an overlying theme of time passes quickly. In the beginning, the narrator is taken to his first day of school by his father who says to him “be a man, today you truly begin life. You will find me waiting for you when it is time to leave” (253). Explaining this in relation to the theme is how the father uses subtle foreshadowing. By the time that the school day is over, the narrator ages immensely and in that time his father had passed away. Consequently, the narrator stood at the

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