Insanity is a state of mind where you are not able to function like a normal person. In both, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe, the protagonists become fixated on an object. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the woman becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper surrounding her room, which soon takes control over her mind. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the man becomes obsessed with the eye of the old man, which causes him to commit a cold hearted murder. Both stories depict the theme of insanity, since there is a buildup of the protagonist becoming mad.
Insanity slowly develops in both stories. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the woman becomes insane due to the wallpaper surrounding her enclosed room. Insanity grew when she arrived to the vacation home; the house made her feel uneasy, she wanted to settle into the room downstairs that “opened into the piazza and had roses all over the window,” and she was forbidden from writing. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the man becomes insane considering that the eye of the old man is interpreted as the “evil” eye. He cannot stand his vulture eye, he fears
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that it can see right into him to his deepest fears. Both Gilman and Poe expose the hallucinations the narrators begin to experience. Gilman and Poe utilize suspense to begin their stories, Gilman compares the arrival to the colonial home to a haunted house and Poe repeats himself “I am not mad.” Both poets display their protagonists enclosed, isolated in a room.
The conflict begins as Gilman projects the narrator's inability to do anything she desires; her husband controls everything. Poe begins with the narrator being enraged by the hatred of the old man’s “evil” eye. Gilman adds an attribute to the narrator where the reader can visualize her becoming mad; she strips off all the wallpaper in her room, bites a piece of her bed as she becomes frustrated and ties herself with rope. Poe’s climax is a bit more dramatic, the narrator kills the old man and cuts up the body “not letting a single drop of blood to fall on the floor.” Both stories do not provide a clear
resolution. Gilman and Poe add a sense of mystery due to the fact that the narrators are very vague, there is no mention of name or gender in either stories, the reader simply has to infer. Both poets create their narrator not with a description of their appearance but with a description of their life and what they have to endure throughout the story. The authors project the narrator's thoughts, agitation, and insanity. Similarities between both characters include that they both are affected by an object becoming obsessed, they want to be freed by this obsession weighing them down, they both strategize as to how to free themselves, and once they're free they grow with relief. They also both begin to hallucinate. In The Yellow Wallpaper and The Tell-Tale Heart insanity is shown clearly. Gilman’s plot structure displays how the narrator becomes mad day after day. Poe’s narrative pace is much faster, jumping into the climax. Both stories incorporate figurative language to display the effects the objects have on the narrator. Gilman and Poe show how insanity gets the best of them.
In Alan Brown’s article “The Yellow Wallpaper’: Another Diagnosis”; Brown discusses why Charolette Perkins Gilman published The Yellow Wallpaper as well as another diagnosis on the character in The Yellow Wallpaper. In the article it is explained that Gilman published this short story as a reflection of her own life. Gilman battled depression and sought out help from expert neurologist. The neurologist had suggested that she rest and be confined to her room. This experience lead to the creation of The Yellow Wallpaper. Being confined to a room like the character in The Yellow Wallpaper is enough to drive anyone to insanity. Brown had a different idea on why the character lost her mind and began to believe she was seeing figures in the wallpaper.
The Yellow Wallpaper as a Guide To Insanity "There comes John, and I must put this away- he hates to have me write a word" (p659). As evident by the above quote, Gilman places the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" as secluded as she could be; she is placed in a large house, surrounded only by her husband and by little help (Jennie), when it is unfortunately clear that her relationship with her husband is based on distance and misunderstanding: "It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so"(p 663). Gilman further confines her narrator as it becomes clear that the poor soul has absolutely no one to talk to; that is, no one who can understand her. The narrator is cornered by her loved ones, she is isolated from the world under her husband-doctor orders, she is thus physically confined to her shaky mental realm. The next aspect of the narrator that zooms us into her state is her tone: "I really have discovered something at last..
In the book the “Tell-Tale Heart” by Edger Allen Poe, the narrator visited the old man and whenever the old man would look at the narrator, the narrator felt judged and scared because the old man had a “Vulture” looking eye. Every night, the narrator would go into the old man’s room and plan on a way to get rid of the eye that infuriated and made the narrator so scared. The narrator killed the old man, however confessed to the murder. “And so, I had finally decided I had to kill the old man and close the eye forever!” This quote showed how the narrator was not mentally sane. Insanity is a mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality and cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior. The narrator said that his hearing became a lot more powerful and could hear sounds from both heaven and hell and these are some symptoms of being mentally insane. The narrator’s insanity in “The Tell-Tale Heart” makes the narrator feel
states "I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long".
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper is partly autobiographical and it illustrates the fight for selfhood by a women in an oppressed and oppressive environment. In the story, the narrator is not allowed to write or think, basically becoming more dysfunctional as she is entrapped in a former nursery room where bars adorn the windows and the bed is nailed to the floor. In this story there is an obstinacy on behalf of the narrator as she tries to go around her husband's and physician's restrictions, however, there is no resisting the oppressive nature of her environment and she finally surrenders to madness even though it represents some kind of selfhood and resistance because it allows her to escape her oppression, "She obsesses about the yellow wallpaper, in which she sees frightful patterns and an imprisoned female figure trying to emerge. The narrator finally escapes from her controlling husband and the intolerable confines of her existence by a final descent into insanity as she peels the wallpaper off and bars her husband from the room" (Gilman, 1999, 1).
In the first place, I fathom the narrator is insane because he is proven ill. For instance, there are many clues throughout “The Tell Tale Heart” that despite the
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.
Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells her readers the story of a woman desperate to be free. Gilman’s use of symbolism is nothing short of brilliant in telling the story of a new mother suffering from postpartum depression and fighting her way through societies ideas of what a woman should be. When her husband, John, also known as her physician, tells her nothing is wrong with her mind, at first she believes him because she knows that society tells her she should. However, with her husband’s misdiagnosis, or attempt to keep his wife sane for the sake of their reputation, comes a short journey into madness for his wife, Jane. Jane’s downward spiral, as one may call it, turns out to be not so downward when the reader
... Poe clearly shows that the narrator is insane because he heard noises, which could not possibly have occurred. As the police officers were sitting and talking in the old man's chamber, the narrator becomes paranoid that the officers suspect him of murder. The narrator says, "I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer. " I felt that I must scream or die."
Is the narrator of “The Tell Tale Heart” sane or insane? “Sanity: a sound of mind; not mad or mentally ill (Webster Dictionary pg. 862).” In the short story, “The Tell Tale Heart.” the narrator tries to convince the audience that he is sane; he says “... but why will you say that I am mad (Poe pg. 202).” I believe that the narrator is sane. He tries to prove that he is sane throughout the entire short story that he is not mad. For example, he was very wary during the seven days that he stalked the old man, he felt an intense amount of guilt, and that he made this brilliant plan of murder.
He continuously tells the reader that he is, in fact, sane and has never been more so. The narrators in Poe 's stories are typically not without a flaw that gives the reader a reason to feel pity toward them; they usually have some trait which propels them into being hopeless in situations. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," the protagonist has the flaw of insanity, which leads to his downfall. He admits to the murder after he becomes convinced he hears the dead old man 's heart beating. While the narrator claims he is completely sane, it is due on some level to his awareness he is not. While in denial, he shares his feelings about his condition with others and gives himself away. The narrator does this so often it may cause a reader to wonder if he is doing it on purpose or if he is just that insane. The main character 's biggest conflict is with himself. He practically begs the reader to be blind to his actions and only to hear his words which say his mind is in one piece. Had he thought it through or been saner, he would have seen his words and his actions told two completely different stories. For all the narrator 's claims that his condition was helping him rather than hindering him, he failed to see and take action to prevent this from
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.
Mental illness today is something that most people take seriously, but not in past history due to it not being thought of as a serious issue. Mental institutions were places for those who were considered, “sick.”. Several times, patient's illnesses would become worse making their stay longer than expected. The main character in The Yellow Wallpaper definitely has a mental illness and she is a patient at a mental institution. Her mental illness became worse as time went on due the lack of interactions with her own family/others, multiple hallucinations, and the amount of medication she was receiving daily.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author of the The Yellow Wallpaper, describes the descent into madness of a young woman at the end of the 19th century. There are two main causes for this spiral through the looking glass. The first is sociocultural in nature, revolving around the woman's traditional role in society. The second reason is more personal to the protagonist as she is purposefully kept from functions and activities that were her sole enrichments in the name of health and love.
...story, the narrator continues to repeat himself over and over, along with question why the reader should have any uncertainty about his psychological state. Additionally, the narrator continues to defend his sanity by telling the reader that he cannot be considered crazy because he was mindful and took caution in his actions: “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded -- with what caution -- with what foresight, with what dissimulation, I went to work!” (1). With Poe’s writing style and use of language he achieves an emotion of genuine doubt about the narrator’s true mental state. Moreover, Poe reveals the narrator’s fear of the “vulture eye” and his peculiar obsession with it until he is finally able to eliminate it.