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Literary analysis on the yellow wallpaper
Character analysis and theme essay on the yellow wallpaper
Character analysis and theme essay on the yellow wallpaper
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Life during the 20th century largely differs from now. Men and women were not seen as equal but men were seen as more superior. The 20th century was a time period which influenced literary writers to write about their feelings and the world around them. Among these literary writers were Edgar Allan Poe and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” share similar elements although written by two different authors. Such as, both have unreliable and unstable narrators, share the concept of entombment, and include characteristics of Gothic tradition. In “The Cask of Amontillado” Montresor wants revenge on Fortunato and will do anything it takes to make Fortunato feel his …show more content…
wrath. This is important because in the midst of Montresor’s raging blindness, one can see that he is not perfectly stable and this makes him an unreliable narrator. This is illustrated in the beginning of the story where Montresor is explaining why he is going to get revenge on Fortunato, Montresor writes, “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled --but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved, precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong” (Poe, 3, ln 1-11). This is saying that Montresor does not want only revenge; Montresor also wants Fortunato to feel his revenge, to know that it was him who inflicted pain on him and it was no one else’s work but his. This is proof that Montresor is an unreliable narrator because it is showcasing his callousness.
Montresor does not care if he hurts Fortunato or if revenge is not the best way to go about his problem with Fortunato, instead he is set on getting his vengeance. Similarly in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, although the narrator is not looking to torture someone for payback, she is still unreliable. Her instability erupts from the “rest cure” which physicians, including her own husband, have recommended for her. The cure itself is not what drove her to her madness; however, it is an important event that took part in the sequence that is her insanity. The narrator first showed symptoms of her instability after two weeks of being at the house. The narrator writes that she is a bit lonely in the house and wishes for some companionship but she is not allowed to see anyone that is not her husband or anyone that her husband has not assigned to watch her. The narrator goes on to write saying, “I wish I could get well faster. But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had! There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down. I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the
everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breadths didn't match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other. I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy store” (Gilman, 773, ln 131-143). In this quote the narrator is describing the image that she sees in the yellow wallpaper that is located in the room she is staying in.
Montresor must trick and manipulate Fortunato to accomplish his goal of revenge. He tells Fortunato the reason he is at the ...
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the woman’s mental health is deteriorating, resulting hallucinatory thinking. I believe the woman’s impaired mental health to be a result of the forced seclusion that she receives at the hands of her husband. The woman describes the wallpaper in her room: “There are things in that wall-paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern (Gilman 22).” The fact that the woman suffers from hallucinations has a considerable impact on the reliability of the information. She could be hallucinating more than the movement of the wallpaper. One does not know definitively how much of her account is hallucinatory and how much is real. In “The Cask of Amontillado,” Montresor has taken extreme measures ,murder, to rid himself of the cruelty he is receiving form Fortunato. Montresor states that “ A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who had done the wrong” (Poe 11). This demonstrates how Montresor feels he has no option but to take matters into his own hands and murder Fortunato. This is not thinking that comes from one of a sound state of
It is constantly seen that people take revenge on each other in the real world so it comes to no surprise that Montresor is taking revenge on Fortunato. Specifically in this story Montresor will feel better if he “not only punish but punish with impunity” (108 Poe). But further on what I found to even more realistic was that this wasn’t normal revenge, this was pure mastermind torture. Montresor knew that Fortunato was sick with Montresor saying “…but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted”(109 Poe) regarding that he didn’t want Fortunato to come down to his vaults, but Montresor true intentions were wanting Fortunato to fight Montresor request of not coming, and it worked. Montresor also knew how well Fortunato was at differencing wine “I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter” (109 Poe). By Montresor exploiting Fortunato’s sickness and skill of wines, Montresor knew that he could get Fortunato in the vaults where he could execute his revenge. At a first glance this may not seem lifelike because there’s an assumption to be made that people aren’t this immoral. But the truth is that the revenge that Montresor conducted is seen constantly in our culture. It’s undeniably real of the monstrosity that was made by Montresor when comparing it to the wicked
Montresor is a man who feels pride in himself and in his family, so when Fortunato—an acquaintance of Montresor— “venture[s] upon insult,” Montresor “vow[s] revenge” against him (1). Montresor hastily decides that he must kill Fortunato, even though his use of the word “venture” implies that Fortunato had not yet insulted him, but nearly did. Montresor’s impulsive need for revenge causes him to formulate a plan to murder his acquaintance. He keeps Fortunato intoxicated by “presenting him…[with] wine,” he “fetter[s] him to the granite,” and he “plaster[s] up… [a wall of] new masonry” to trap Fortunato in the catacombs (39, 71, 89). All of these acts are signs that the need for revenge has made Fortunato insane. A person who has any sense of morals would not commit crimes such as Montresor’s. His impetuous decision to exact revenge caused him to lose his
Charlotte Perkins Gillman and Edgar Allen Poe are both well-known and greatly respected writers in history with similar, but unique writing styles. They both use an unreliable narrator to mislead the reader, but slowly drop hints that something is a little off. In Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper she tells a story narrated by a woman in the late 19th century who has been ordered to get as much rest as possible because of her “temporary nervous depression.” As the story progresses, she starts to slowly lose her sanity from being condemned in her room for so long, and eventually develops a scary obsession with the wallpaper. Poe’s short story, the Cask of Amontillado, is narrated by an Italian man named Montresor who has vowed to get revenge for
In “The Cask of Amontillado”, Montresor made up in his mind that he would carry out his act of revenge on Fortunato. Whatever offense Fortunato committed against Montresor drove him to the brink. The hatred inside was somewhat poetic. Montresor schemed to every detail how to carry out his revenge. The setting of the story is a dark, gloomy night at a celebration during carnival season. Montresor would be detailed in describing the monetary status of his enemy, his wardrobe or costume he wore to the celebration. He would set the mood as cheerful. Despite the ill feelings he has towards the now drunken Fortunato, Montresor pretends to care for his company to lure him towards his cunning plan. He strokes Fortunato’s ego and his love for wine to draw him towards the cellar. The dark, damp halls, the claustrophobia, and the human skeletons lying about the earth were all a foreshadowing of Motresor’s plan for the drunken Fortunato. It enhanced suspense to the story, building up to the climax which would be Fortunato entering into his grave. As they further enter the hal...
According to Montresor, Fortunato committed “a thousand injuries” against him, but it was Fortunado’s insult against Montresor that fueled Montresor’s hatred enough to commit what is the ultimate crime against another person; the crime of death. The opening paragraph of The Cask of Amontillado says,
When they arrive at the Montresor estate, Montresor leads Fortunato down the stairs into the catacombs. Down here is where the Amontillado Fortunato is going to taste and where the revenge of Montresor is going to take place. As he get closer and closer, the narrator opens up more and more to how he is going to kill his "friend". It sound like it is a premeditated murder. Montresor seems so inconspicuous that he acts like he cares about Fortunato which is still a part of his plan.
The short story, " The Yellow Wallpaper", written by Charlotte Gilman, and "The Cask of Amontillado" written by Edgar Allan Poe, are stories in which the plots are very different, but share similar qualities with the elements in the story. "The Cask of Amontillado" is a powerful tale of revenge, in which the narrator of the tale pledges revenge upon Fortunato for an insult. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a story about a woman, her psychological difficulties and her husband's therapeutic treatment of her illness. She struggles over her illness, and battle's her controlling husband. The settings in both stories are very important, they influence the characters, and help with the development of the plot.
Reading Edgar Allen Poe’s works such as “The Cask of Amontillado” and “Tell-Tale Heart” are both written around 1840’s and written in the gothic style. Poe displays his horror short stories, in which the reader can differentiate his signature style. Although many of Poe’s significant works may have a similar theme, the reader can distinguish the themes through the characters in “The Cask of Amontillado” and “Tell-Tale Heart.”
Montresor in "The Cask of Amontillado" is similar to the narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart" in that his obsession with consuming the soul of Fortunato influences his every action. However, it is with Fortunato himself that he is obsessed. He feeds off of Fortunato's pain, unlike the narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart" who's obsession is with destroying a menacing inanimate object. Montresor's entire conspiracy is focused around making Fortunato suffer, and for him to know just who is causing this suffering. This is why he goes to such lengths to put together this intricate strategy. It could have been so much easier to kill Fortunato in some easier, quicker way. Instead, he dedicates himself to torturing Fortunato. He creates a plan that leads Fortunato into the depths of the catacombs beneath his home, and kills him in an excruciating manner.
In the 19th century society was from different from what it is today. Women were not in the workforce, could not vote, or even have a say in anything. Women were not permitted to give evidence in court, nor, did they have the right to speak in public before an audience. When a woman married, her husband legally owned all she had (including her earnings, her clothes and jewelry, and her children). If he died, she was entitled to only a third of her husband’s estate. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wanted to change this. She wanted people to understand the plight of women in the 19th century. In her short story The Yellow Wallpaper she tries to convey this to the reader not just on a literal level, but through various symbols in the story. In The Yellow Wallpaper the author uses symbols to show restrictions on women, lack of public interaction, the struggle for equality, and the possibilities of the female sex during the 1800s.
Unlike “The Tell Tale Heart” were the narrator loved the old man just hated his eye, the narrator of “The Cask of Amontillado” hated Fortunato but did things that make it look like he loved him. Montresor approaches Fortunato with claiming to have acquired something that could pass for Amontillado. Here Montresor may seem like he is being nice but he really just using Fortunato’s love for wine against him. As they went through the catacombs Montresor gave Fortunato enough wine so that he would be drunk and would be oblivious of what was happening as they went deeper and deeper into the catacombs. Fortunato never expected this to be the plan but just as a simple act of kindness from Montresor. As mentioned in the introduction of this paper the narrator of this story wanted revenge. Why does the Montresor want revenge? Well it is mention in the story on page three “THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge” but never gives us a full reason just that Fortunato insulted the Montresor in some
The “The Yellow Wall-paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe share a common theme of confinement and both main characters illustrate insanity, what’s of particular interest is the differences between Poe and Gilman’s portrayal of insanity and how their characters experience confinement. Gilman and Poe come from different backgrounds, write for different reasons, and use different writing styles, therefore, give different interpretations of mental illness unfortunately their interpretations continue the stigma of how mentally ill man and woman are pigeon-holed in literature.
A wise man once said, “Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer.” If only Fortunato knew that he was more of an enemy than a friend, then he wouldn’t have fallen for Montresor trap. I guess you can’t blame Fortunato for believing in Montresor because they consider one another as friend. However, according to Montresor, Fortunato has step on his foot way too many times. In person, Montresor doesn’t show his true feeling to Fortunato because I think he’s the silent but deadly kind of dude. As reader, we found out that not only did Montresor want vengeance; he wanted to inflict as much pain as possible to Fortunato. Putting trust into a person can be hard to do; Personally, I think people should take everything into consideration before saying “I trust you.” The three main topics that I found interesting in the “The Cask of Amontillado” are the value of trust, the weakness of Fortunato, and the irony of the situation.