Duality In The Uncanny By Charlotte P. Gilman

When Freud outlined the trends of the “double” existing in literature he mentions that “this relation [the double phenomenon] is accentuated by mental processes leaping from one of these characters to another… so that one possesses knowledge, feelings and experience in common with the other.” (Excerpt #4). A character walks past a mirror, stares at themselves for a couple of seconds, and when they leave their reflection doesn't follow them. The idea of the presence of a doppelganger or another realm has remained present in the world of art, drawing back to the concept of the double in “The Uncanny” by Sigmund Freud. The idea of “The Uncanny”, coined by Sigmund Freud, deals with such things that are frightening but brings one back to what is

Gilman is written as a journal documenting the thoughts and experiences of the narrator who is mentally ill and therefore confined in her attic as a remedy method. While the narrator is under strict orders to only rest and is forbidden to write, she shifts her unused energy to focus on an ugly yellow wallpaper, and she begins to investigate and document her observations. The narrator documents that she sees a feminine figure, resembling a woman, in the wallpaper. As the days go by the narrator begins to assign more experiences and emotions to the woman, granting her characteristics common to herself. The woman would share feelings with the narrator and mimic her actions. She writes that the woman was, “stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern,” (Gilman 7) while she herself also had to hide while writing. The woman, “wanted to get out,”(Gilman 7) while the narrator was also itching to escape her attic. She also wrote, “By daylight she [the woman in the wallpaper] is subdued, quiet… It keeps me quiet by the hour.” (Gilman 8). As the woman in the wallpaper remained quiet, the narrator would mimic her through silence. The narrator thought that she must let the woman out from behind the paper, but keep a rope handy to trap her. She peels back the wallpaper, and instead of trapping the imaginary woman, she apparently confines herself within the wallpaper, ending her

The interactions become interdimensional, occurring between the physical and mental world, or between reality and fantasy. The story is written from the perspective of an increasingly deranged narrator, whose thoughts tend to become more and more unbelievable and likely to be unreliable. The story started from a rational perspective, drawing clear conclusions about the reality of the situation and then transitioned into a perspective anchored in her derangement and visions. She begins the journal with images of the house, “The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village”(Gilman 1). As the days pass she moves into a creepier, progressively obsessive narrative concerning only the wallpaper, “There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will” (Gilman 7). Eventually, the wallpaper starts to change and confuse the narrator as she loses track of what she knows. She writes these thoughts in her journal, “...it is tiresome and perplexing. There are always new shoots on the fungus, and new shades of yellow all over it. I cannot keep count of them, though I have tried conscientiously” (Gilman 10). The narrator's subconscious had started to run faster than her present mind could keep up with. The uncanny starts to