Narrative Perception
Narrative PerceptionNarrative Perception
When literature first began to take flight in America, many of the stories written were of the Gothic variety. American society, at the time, seemed to connect with fantasy and reality, therefore many early writers wrote in the Gothic style. Most of these Gothic stories feature characters whose perceptions of themselves and the world around them are abnormal due to drug use, being in a dream state, or simply just madness. In comparing two short stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” it seems that the character’s perceptions affect the way the reader understands the events of the story.
Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story that deals with certain issues that pertained to many women during the nineteenth century. The narrator is a fairly young woman that has just moved into a “temporary” home with her “husband.” Her “husband” and doctor, John, has diagnosed her with depression. His prescription is plenty of rest. This refers to the fact that in the nineteenth century, the man was responsible for taking care of the woman both financially and emotionally, while the woman was expected to stay at home. It has been well documented that this type of solitude can lead to an even deeper, darker depression.
The narrator’s mind is an interlacing of patterns, similar to the wallpaper. Her perceptions are abnormal and extremely confusing. The story can be interpreted in a completely different way than the woman describes. Perhaps the woman’s mind is so jumbled that everything she says is a complete lie. Over and over again, the woman says things that sound a little strange in the context of the tale she relates to the reader.
It can be concluded from the story, that the woman is not simply in a new home with her husband, who just so happens to be a doctor. She is more than likely in a mental institution, admitted for depression. She says that her new home stands “quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village.” (Gilman 551) She then describes the garden, saying, “There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden – large and shady, full of box-bordered paths.” (Gilman 552) But what sort of house has a garden like the one described and separated from the main town? It seems likely that the woman is in an institution, but her perception of it is so distorted that she believes that it is her new house.
The fact that her “husband” is also a doctor suggests her mental state. She says that, “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special instruction.” This sounds more like a description of a doctor\patient connection than a husband\wife relationship. The narrator also says that John...
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