Compare And Contrast The Yellow Wallpaper And The Fall Of The House Of Usher

While “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” achieve the same goal of providing a looking glass into mental illness’s effect on a person, they accomplish this in distinct ways through their uses of gothic elements, major differences in their symptoms and the perceptions of the mental illness by other characters. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the degradation of Roderick’s house is the cause of his mental illness; likewise, the narrator's mental illness in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is inherently connected to the condition of the room she is confined in. As the narrator’s mental health degrades to the point of insanity, she demolishes aspects of her room; the room represents her mental health. As the story progresses,

The first examples of this are the effects of the mental illness on the character’s physical health. Roderick’s mental decline in “The Fall of the House of Usher” ultimately leads to physical damage while the mental status of the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” does not seem to affect her physical health. For example, in the ending of “The Fall of the House of Usher” it is assumed that Roderick succumbs to his fearful condition and dies at the sight of his sister; the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” remains completely untouched physically by her mental illness. Another difference between the two stories related to mental illness is that Roderick’s illness seems to have a focus on fear, while the Yellow Wallpaper is more focused on a sense of urgency and anxiety. Roderick is completely consumed by the idea that he will be the last Usher remaining consequently resulting in his statement that “In this unnerved—in this pitiable condition—I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR” (Usher). This showcases the focus on fear that Roderick’s condition has. Contrast this to “The Yellow Wallpaper” and you’ll see that the narrator does not have fear, but rather, she has an obsession. In the ending moments of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator obsessively tears down the wallpaper to liberate the women trapped behind the paper; she has no fear, only