The mind serves as both a tool and a weapon. It has the power to create beautiful works of art and the power to cause mass destruction. Made up of the will, thoughts, and emotions of humans, the mind has control of every aspect of a person. Killing the mind kills the person inside. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a woman suspected of having a disease was taken by her husband to live together in a huge, lonely house. The wallpaper in the room drove her insane, leading her to believe that a woman, much like herself, was trapped within its barriers. Similarly, Stephen Crane’s“The Dark Brown dog” shows the relationship between a boy and his new dog. However, love is not exchanged in the traditional form of tummy tickles and ear scratching. The boy’s abusive behavior towards the dog stemmed from his family life and turned into a routine that defined both him and the dog. “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Dark Brown Dog” both accurately portray the destruction of a person’s (or animal’s) mindset through distorted beliefs and forced submission. …show more content…
At the beginning of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the woman writes of her husband’s diagnosis for her illness saying, “If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression-- a slight hysterical tendency-- what is one to do?”(Lynch para.