Literary Analysis : ' The Yellow Wallpaper, By Arthur Conan Doyle

In his Enigmas of Identity, Peter Brooks describes the “transactional nature of the self,” where individual identity is created through its relationship with others (Brooks 23). Identity is forged through “transpersonal networks”, moving beyond the individual or the personal (23). Identity is not static, but a continuous “project,” asking in what ways one stays the same, changes and grows (15). In Arthur Conan Doyle’ “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” identity and its transactional, malleable nature play a significant role. In each narrative, the identities of those protagonists hold shape shifting capabilities, and mistaken or lost individual identities are major themes.

A common feature of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories is mistaken identity. Holmes frequently assumes a different identity to achieve his goals as a detective while investigating his various mysteries. Holmes has the ability to transform and renegotiate his identity to serve a particular purpose. In “A Scandal in Bohemia”, Irene Adler, as an actress, is capable of this shape shifting as well. In this story, Holmes is hired to recover some criminating letter and photos of Irene Adler and the King of Bohemia, who is fearful that his fiancé will learn of his impropriety. During his investigation Holmes follows Alder disguised as a drunken man, and later disguises himself as a clergyman. Holmes’ identity is often manipulated by him, but his position as they skilled detective is never lost. Unknown to Holmes, Alder also disguised herself as a young man. At the conclusion, Adler leaves behind a letter addressed to Holmes explaining how she has bested Holmes. In her letter, she...

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...nterpersonal interactions are with her husband, our perspective of her is skewed. The narrator becomes deliberately infantilized as John takes a parental role beyond that of a husband or doctor. As the narrative progresses, the increased loss of the self becomes more apparent. The narrator remains unnamed until the end of the story. The ending is unclear, conflicting between a complete loss of the self and a defiant liberation. In the final lines of the story, the narrator is given a named identity: “’I 've got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I 've pulled off most of the paper, so you can 't put me back!’” (Gilman). The narrator becomes a manifestation of distress and anxiety, rather than a real woman. The yellow wallpaper takes on a role of its own, and this relationship between the narrator and her material surroundings becomes all consuming.