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Shutter Island Characterization

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Recommended: An analytical note on gothic fiction

"Sanity is not a choice. You can 't just decide to get better." Many different forms of gothic literature contain protagonist 's who are fighting an internal battle. For example, in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" Peyton Fahrquhar refuses to accept his fate, creating a fantasy in which he escapes, only to die as his fantasy reunites him with his loved ones. The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" mentally turns into one of "those creeping women" she sees out her window. Whilst Andrew Laeddis from Shutter Island is like both of them. His schizophrenia results in a belief that he is Edward Daniels, each time the doctors got through to him he would have a relapse and sink back into his fantasy world. In each literary work the use of …show more content…

Direct characterization describes Peyton Fahrquhar as "an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause." The majority of the characterization of narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is indirect, inferred through the different thoughts and emotions she experiences through the duration of the story. The characterization in Shutter Island is a mix of the two, as Andrew Laeddis is at first described by Teddy as "a firebug", an "ugly-looking son of a bitch", with a "huge scar from his right temple down to his left lip", and his "eyes different colors." When it is revealed that the two are the same person, the sense of danger associated with the name Andrew Laeddis combines with the knowledge of how haunted Teddy 's life is, making his mental conflict worrisome to the viewer. He attacked George Noyce in an effort to forget, he is easily "the most dangerous patient" at Ashcliffe. The characterization of the individuals makes their difficulties understandable to the audience. However, the conflict is demonstrated in other …show more content…

There is an evident contrast between John 's method, and the method used by Dr. Cawley and Dr. Naehring. John believes that in order for his wife to heal she must take drugs, ignore her condition, and resist any urges she may feel, to the point where the suffocation causes her to go mad. The doctors at Ashcliffe on the other hand, "try to heal, try to cure. And if that fails, at least [they] provide them with a measure of comfort in their lives." The method used at Ashcliffe is more effective when it comes to recovery, as many of the patients had enough understanding to take part in the role play, and the treatment successfully penetrated Andrew 's fantasy twice. The method John uses causes his wife to have a mental breakdown. Both methods are understandable and illustrate the internal quarrel happening in the protagonist 's

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473 Words | 2 Pages

Literary analysis of “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” Ambrose Bierce, the Author of “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” about a man who was being hanged, throughout the story Peyton hallucinates and thinks that he has escaped the hanging but in reality he’s dying. Bierce uses symbolism in “ An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” to foreshadow that Peyton is going to die. There are multiple allusions throughout the story that Bierce used to convey the death of Peyton. Imagery is used throughout the entire story to show that Peyton is hallucinating. Throughout the entire story Bierce uses multiple literary techniques to foreshadow Peyton’s death.

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1085 Words | 5 Pages

When reading a fiction, not only the plot, but also the narrator and the point of view are important to readers in order to understand the story. Stories can be told in a various angle of vision or in one perspective, depending on which person point of view. “A story is said to be from a character’s point of view, or a character is said to be a focal or focalizing character” (Norton, 174). Readers sometimes feel they are overhearing the narrator’s thoughts because they follow along the narrator’s thoughts, actions, and feelings. Both Sonny’s Blues and the Yellow paper use first person narration.

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1600 Words | 7 Pages

My interpretation of the main theme for each poem, short story, and piece of nonfiction in both sections is, “You will always encounter obstacles throughout life, but with the support from others you can overcome them”. Each piece of literature chosen from unit two supports my theme because characters from the writings had obstacles to face but not all accepted help from others. The authors of these pieces of works showed the outcomes of their characters and whether they made the right or wrong decision in the choices they made. In the nonfiction internet article “Mary Mallon’s Trail of Typhoid” written by Catherine Carey it explains that under certain circumstances, people are blind or may try to avoid the reality of the truth.

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664 Words | 3 Pages

Only the charwoman goes near him. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator feels trapped by her husband and physician, John, because he is controlling and believes he knows what is best for her. The woman that the narrator sees in the wallpaper is eventually revealed to be

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1298 Words | 6 Pages

It was a gray day. The sun did not shine; it could not pierce the layers of powdery black skies along with the fog. The thick mist that was not really rain, or fog covered the southeastern corner of New Jersey. It was depressing, just like most days in the area surrounding the Overbrook Asylum. On the outside, Overbrook was a welcoming place where patients were treated with care along with respect; the inside was very different.

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1362 Words | 6 Pages

Essentially, it is the physical and subsequent metaphorical entrapment of the female protagonist by her husband in The Yellow Wallpaper that leads to a loss of her identity. In addition to physical descriptions, a sense of identity can be established through the delivery of relationships with others, and moral beliefs. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the interplay of characters plays a key role in defining the narrator’s identity through the imbalance of power in her marriage with John. Gilman arguably presents the narrator’s descent into madness through her inability to create a new identity counter to John’s entrapment of her.

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1476 Words | 6 Pages

Published in 1962, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest tells the story of Patrick McMurphy, a newly-admitted patient at a psychiatric hospital where individuals with various mental conditions are treated. Run primarily by Nurse Ratched, a demeaning autocrat who exhibits complete control over others, the patients are subjected to various forms of treatments and therapy with the intent of rehabilitation (Kesey 5). Most forms of treatment depicted in Kesey’s novel, such as group therapy, are an accurate representation of what typical psychiatric patients may encounter while under care at a mental facility. Yet others, particularly electroshock therapy and lobotomies, were quite controversial at the time of the novel’s publication. Such treatments were questioned for their effectiveness at improving patients’ condition – and while these procedures were still occasionally performed at the time, they often did not benefit the treated individual.

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749 Words | 3 Pages

The main character is quiet, always following orders during the day, but at night she creeps; creeps on to the very edge of the wallpaper to converse with the women trapped inside, for "by daylight, she is subdued" (245). The protagonist in "The Yellow Wallpaper" thoroughly describes how the absence of light changes the paper, claiming "it changes as the light changes" (244) though it is only her perception of it that is distorted. There is a quality to the wallpaper that disturbs her inner being, "things in that paper that nobody knows"

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871 Words | 4 Pages

Jane tells John, her husband, what she is feeling, but he does not listen to her and assumes everything is fine ( Gilman 527). John decides to ignore her feelings instead of trying to help her; this suggests that their relationship is not healthy. According to Suess, Jane also has an unhealthy relationship with the medical language. One of the reasons she feels this way is because according to doctors, there is nothing wrong with her health. Mental problems, such as depression, are issues men in the nineteenth century do not seem to be aware of (Suess).

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1341 Words | 6 Pages

It is obvious that medical treatment can be very helpful for the patient and would provide results. However simple companionship may also help as they could simply talk about their problem. Counselling might actually help more than medical treatment which may have more of a negative effect emotionally on the patient. Medical treatment aims to heal the patients so they can return and function properly in society however this is not the case in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ written by Ken Kasey. In his novel the mental institution serves as a method to keep the patients away from society and doesn’t function to help the men but to keep them passive.

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1113 Words | 5 Pages

Secondly, throughout the story, the narrator describes seeing an evolving woman trapped inside of the wall. Although readers can assume that this woman is merely a product of the narrator’s mind, the woman can also be seen as a symbol of the narrator and her feelings of being trapped. Eventually, the woman in the wall aids the narrator in her escape. In conclusion, many elements of the narrator’s increasing madness throughout The Yellow Wallpaper contributed to her freedom from the confines of the room, the confines of society, and the confines of her

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1008 Words | 5 Pages

Martin states that the narrator’s confinement in the upstairs bedroom fortifies her mental illness developing into “a frightening hallucinatory world constructed around the pattern of the yellow paper on the wall.” This shift in her identity happens as the shift in her disposition towards the wallpaper changes. The wallpaper is a visible metaphor that eventually becomes her identity. In the beginning of her stay in the bedroom she says the wallpaper is “committing artistic sin” (Par34) and can push anyone to “suddenly commit suicide” (Par35) These comments show her despise towards the wallpaper and the separation she originally has from it.

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814 Words | 4 Pages

The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story full of imaginative symbolism and descriptive settings. However, without the narrator’s unique point of view and how it affects her perception of her environment, the story would fail to inform the reader of the narrator’s emotional plummet. The gothic function of the short story is to allow the reader to be with the narrator as she gradually loses her sanity and the point of view of the narrator is key in ensuring the reader has an understanding of the narrator’s emotional and mental state throughout the story. It’s clear from the beginning of the story that the narrator’s point of view greatly differs from that of her husband’s and other family in her life.

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501 Words | 3 Pages

To be trapped in one's own mind may be the worst prison imaginable. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper", the narrator of the story is constantly at battle with many different forces, such as John, her husband, the yellow wallpaper that covers the walls of her room, and ultimately herself. Throughout the story the narrator further detaches herself from her life and becomes fixated on the yellow wallpaper that surrounds her in her temporary home, slowly driving her mad. The narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a major and dynamic character as she is the main character of the story, and throughout the story her personality and ways of thinking change drastically.

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1072 Words | 5 Pages

I. INTRODUCTION: Interest-catching opening. : Background: Shutter Island is a 2010 film directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a U.S. Marshall who goes to a mental hospital to solve the disappearance of a patient, and the person responsible for killing his wife. While investigation this disappearance he uncovers secrets and truths of his own, the most damming is the horror of losing all three of his children due to his wife killing them, leading him to kill her.

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