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Essay Comparing The Yellow Wallpaper And The Black Cat

1467 Words6 Pages

In the Literary Eras of Romanticism and Realism, the theme of hysteria is written about in multitude, which is apparent in the two short stories “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Kate Chopin and “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe. These two short stories highlight the unnamed narrator's descent into insanity. The man and the woman emphasize madness during this period in different ways. Kate Chopin’s goal in her writing about women was to stress the stigma and lack of knowledge during this time of women’s health. This is why the narrators reason for going insane is different as the man abuses alcohol, avoiding a real problem. Compared to the woman who is locked away, fighting to remain sane. Their partners contributed to their madness through ignorance of their significant other’s condition. Finally, by …show more content…

She fell dead upon the spot without a groan”(Poe 11). At this point in the poem, the wife is referred to as the body. Proving no significance to the man, as this participates in driving the man to insanity; similar to the women from The Yellow Wallpaper. Likewise, the woman's spouse plays a role in her hysteria since he is the doctor who diagnosed her and gave her the remedy of the rest. Her husband, John, treats her like a child and belittles her. In turn, this provokes her to look for any companionship, which she finds with the woman she hallucinates trapped in the wallpaper. The woman did go insane due to her husband's measures of forcing her to be locked away, as her only form of human connection is him. Just like the wife from The Black Cat, she saw the man’s struggle with alcohol and the abuse of the animals, but since she never confronts her husband, the man continues to justify his actions. In the end, the justification of the man and the ignorance of the wife ended up killing

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1480 Words | 6 Pages

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