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The Tell-Tale Heart Narrative Analysis

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Intro- “The Yellow Wallpaper” takes place inside the mind of a woman suffering a slow mental breakdown illustrated by her obsession with the yellow wallpaper. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator tells his story of living with an old man who had a "cloudy blue eye" that drove the narrator insane, but through the story he insists he is not insane. The point of view contributes to the meaning of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” because it emphasizes narrative reliability, setting, and the theme of illusion vs reality. Narrative Reliability- The point of view contributes to the meaning of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” because it emphasizes narrative reliability. “The Yellow Wallpaper” narrated in first person point of view, from the entries in the main character’s journal. The journal entries are strictly of her present thoughts and feelings. The main character’s reliability is faulty because reality is filtered through her depleting mental state. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is told in …show more content…

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the setting is only available to the audience through what the main character describes in her journal. The main character extensively describes the present 19th century estate where she lives, her bedroom and the bedroom’s wallpaper. The main character’s mental state is reflected by the setting. “(The house) is quite alone standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates.” The estate is isolated from the road and from society. The house itself is described as a place that binds and restricts with its barred windows, many locks and gates. The setting is much similar to the narrator’s emotional position that is isolated and restricted. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the

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Gilman shows the progression of the main character’s insanity through the woman in the wallpaper, John, and the bed. Like most individuals, the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” gradually shows increased symptoms of insanity. She begins the summer as a sane individual. As time progresses, she starts acting

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Jamie Hobbs Ms. Birkhead 20th Century Literature A233 29 September 2015 Comparison/Contrast of The Harold Krebs and the Narrator In the early 20th century no one had any great understanding of a psychological illness and the outcome was the suffering of many ill patients. "Soldiers Home" takes place right after the war in 1919 and shows how the war can effect a man 's perception on life immensely. "

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The first line of “The Yellow Wallpaper” tells us both the setting of the story and the story’s narrator, “It is very seldom that mere ordinary

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“Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!”(Gilman 244). The narrator describes herself becoming part of an inanimate object and escaping her confinement. When she becomes depressed after giving birth to her child, the narrator has strict orders to follow in order to “make her better.” As she follows the doctor’s commands and isolates herself from everyone and everything she loved, she loses her mental stability.

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A Husband’s Control: Women Must Defer to Her Husband in All Matters of Marriage and Obedience As the narrator introduces her story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the reader goes back in where a women is considered fragile in her mind and naïve to the world around them. The narrative depicts a woman’s strife while personally suffering “nervous depression” (376) and how such a malady happened to be treated by her attending physician, whom is also her husband by the name of John. In 1899, polite society dictated and observed propriety at all times therefore, wives and unmarried ladies were expected to defer to their husband or the oldest living male family member within the residence.

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The symbol of “The Yellow Wallpaper” manufactures qualities in order to help create connections between the reader and the story. Many of its qualities are symbolic in a way that only the woman can relate to because of the situation she is in. One of the room’s features with symbolic value are the bars on the windows. They portray the woman’s entrapment, because of her husband’s limitations on her freedom.

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Short stories often utilize suspense to peak a reader 's interest and keep them reading until the end of the story. One story that utilizes suspense is CP Gillman 's "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a woman 's experience with a rest treatment is described through an intriguing stream of consciousness. To determine how suspense is created in this story it is important to closely analyze the word choice of the story and how it plays a role in the reader 's interpretation of the text (Bennet and Royle 227). By looking at how the narrator describes her mental state, the reader is better able to understand exactly how the narrator is feeling and discern her mental state. In addition, the syntax of the novel leaves certain aspects of the ending up for multiple interpretations creating tension between open and closed readings of the text (Bennet and Royle 232).

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The dominant point of view in the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” Is told by a first person. She tells her story from a closed room, so that she can receive the “rest cure” treatment for her nervous condition and depression. She is the major character in the story. She writes in her journal everyday about her situation. The first person focuses on her owns thoughts and feelings hoping she can overcome her mental state.

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The narrator is a woman who is imaginative trying to make her mind think and realize the meaning of the yellow wallpaper. She describes the wallpaper as, “repellant, almost revolting; smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow turning sunlight” (Gilman 641). This specific wallpaper makes the narrator feel a certain way. At first, she does not like the color or how it looks. But then not having anything else to do in the room, she starts examining the wallpaper.

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In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is suffering from postpartum depression. The narrator 's husband John, who also happens to be her physician, prescribes the rest cure to help lift his wife of her depressive state and ultimately heal her depression. However, the rest cure does not allow the narrator to experience any mental stimulation. Therefore, to manage her boredom the narrator begins obsessing over the pattern of the yellow wallpaper. After analyzing the pattern for awhile, the narrator witnesses a woman trapped behind bars.

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The house is in a super-isolated place. The house represents the narrator 's personal emotions; restricted and isolation. In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the symbolism of the the wallpaper and the diary demonstrate the psychological difficulties, that were caused by being disrespected and thought less of, during the 19th century for women across the United States. In the “Yellow Wallpaper”, the woman 's husband John neglects her symptoms of postpartum and says she has a slight hysterical tendency.

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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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However, in stories such as “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator’s point of view is what truly helps define the setting and symbolism. Without the narrator’s distinct point of view on how she

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(678) in this statement she is challenging herself and this shows the reader she is facing some confusion. The yellow wallpaper in the main characters (the narrator) bedroom is a major point in the story. The yellow wallpaper plays a major role in the woman’s insanity. The woman’s obsession with the wallpaper creates her problem and affects her mind and judgment. This is shown in, “It dwells on my mind so!”

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The short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a brilliant piece of fictional literature. The tale involves a mentally ill woman who is kept in a hideous, yellow room under the orders of her husband, John, who is a physician. The ill woman is conflicted due to the fact that the horrifying yellow wallpaper in the room is trapping a woman who she must help escape, but the sick woman is aware that she must get better in order to leave the terrifying, yellow room. The setting and personification applied in the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, allows readers to develop an understanding of the sickness of the main character faces.

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