The Relation Between the Setting And the Character In The Yellow Wallpaper and Big Two-Hearted River

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The Relation Between the Setting And the Character In The Yellow Wallpaper and Big Two-Hearted River

The aim of this paper is to analyze the importance and relation of the

setting and characters in the two short stories: "The Yellow

Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Ernest Hemingway's "Big

Two-Hearted River".

The setting in "The Yellow Wallpaper" helps illustrate the theme of

solitary confinement and exclusion from the public resulting in

insanity. The house rented by the characters for the summer as well as

the surrounding scenery suggest an isolated environment. Because of

its vast "colonial mansion" look, its age and state of degradation, a

supernatural hypothesis is implied: the place is haunted by ghosts.

The nursery room with barred windows provides an image of loneliness

and seclusion experienced by the protagonist. If Gilman's story could

be thought as a house, structurally it is nearly all interior, rarely

leaving the scene of the bedroom and emphasizing the interior /

exterior division. The centre of the space is the bedroom itself, with

its hideous wallpaper that has a "recurrent spot where the pattern

lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside

down.". The unclean, "repellent, almost revolting" wallpaper, full of

patterns depicting extreme confusion, with a humanoid hiding behind

it, contributes to the narrator's isolation and intensifies her

illness to the point when insanity takes over.

In "Big Two-Hearted River" the wilderness of the Upper Peninsula of

Michigan, consisting of the forests, river, meadow and swamp, is the

background for the protagonist Nick Adams's solitary struggling ...

... middle of paper ...

...he cruel world. He creates his own paradise on earth,

assessing his situation with the word "good" in the same way as God

assessed His creation in the Old Testament.

In conclusion, the way of presenting setting and characters in both

stories is similar to some extent. First of all, Jane and Nick's

experiences and feelings are expressed through the setting which

influences their behaviour and carries symbols for them. While the

setting in "The Yellow Wallpaper" indicates the narrator's

imprisonment and gradual deterioration of her mental health, in "Big

Two-Hearted River" it helps the protagonist recover from the traumatic

past and escape to the better calmer world. Both characters in their

specific way make an effort to substitute the uncomfortable reality

with something which could enable them to forget their pains.

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