Madness in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Tell-Tale Heart

Madness in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Tell-Tale Heart Compare the portrayal and use of madness in The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. Which story did you prefer and why? The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe both describe characters who in the opinion of other people are insane. The characters hysterical behaviour due to their insanity is depicted as the stories progress. The Yellow Wallpaper was written for a reason to demonstrate how women were treated in society in the 19th Century. The Tell-Tale heart was written primarily for the purpose of entertainment. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman†¦show more content†¦It is written as if the character was speaking to a psychiatrist or a detective giving a full account of his actions because of this he frequently justifies his actions and is very proud of the meticulous design of his crime: If you still think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. In The Yellow Wallpaper the character is dismayed by the fear of her impending madness: I wish I could get well faster. Although she believes that she is completely sane, she is fully aware that people around her find her behaviour very peculiar. She is also aware that she is becoming fixated by the wallpaper in her room and realises that she demonstrates hysterical tendencies towards it. In The Tell-Tale heart the character is also aware that people believe him to be mad and find his behaviour neurotic, but he is convinced that he is sane and sets out to assure the reader of this: How, then am I mad? You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. Throughout the story he never shows fear of his madness because he never believes that he is. At the beginning of The Yellow Wallpaper the character is quite sane although she does demonstrate signs of incipient madness. She is however ill and recovering from postnatal depression, which is why she is imprisoned in her little room. The irony is that instead of curing her illness, theShow MoreRelatedTell Tale Heart and the Yellow Wall Paper1321 Words   |  6 Pagesstories â€Å"The Tell Tale Heart† by Edgar Allen Poe, and â€Å"The Yellow Wall Paper† by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Even though their writing styles are far apart they deal with a similar issue. Both authors deal with the fragility of the human mind. Both stories are very interesting and hold you to the core perhaps it is because any truly sane person knows that there is a little madness in all of us. Maybe that is why many people still read their stories today. In the story â€Å"The Tell Tale Heart† the narratorRead MoreThe Yellow Wallpaper and the Tell Tale Heart Analysis1189 Words   |  5 PagesHawkins 1 Deidre Professor Connors English 102-15 March 12, 2011 Narrative Unreliability and Symbolisms in â€Å"The Tell -Tale Heart† and â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† â€Å"The Tell -Tale Heart† by Edgar Allan Poe, was released in 1843. It is one of Poe’s shortest stories and provides a look into paranoia and mental deterioration. â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was released in 1899. This story also provides a look into mental deterioration and had been misinterpreted when it wasRead MoreA Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe1156 Words   |  5 Pagesconclusion that all of the stories we read in class contain some level of madness. For example in the short stories â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† by Charlotte Perkins Gilman â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† by Edgar Allan Poe, both of the main character in these stories believe that they are perfectly wise, but their out of control behaviors proves that they’re mentally ill or to be more specific insane. In the short story â€Å"A tell-tale heart† the unknown narrator is telling us a story about his neighbor who is anRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart And The Yellow Wallpaper Essay1619 Words   |  7 Pagesâ€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† and â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† each depict a personal viewpoint of mentally ill characters, who both differ and are alike in various aspects of â€Å"madness.† Edgar Allan Poe’s character denies a presence of madness entirely, yet blames a physical ailment instead. As deeply disturbed as the character seems because of the eye, he abruptly decides to eradicate what he believes is the primary issue rather than considering attempting to heal his own â€Å"disease.† Charlotte Gilman’s story differsRead MoreEdgar Allen Poe and Charlotte Perkins Are Unreliable Narrators: A Discussion1013 Words   |  4 Pagespsychological constructs of the characters contained within their short stories. In The Tell-Tale Heart, by P oe, the unnamed narrator maintains that he is not mad despite the fact that he has murdered someone in the process of trying to destroy an Evil eye. On the other hand, in The Yellow Wallpaper, by Perkins, the unnamed narrator recognizes that her nerves have contributed to her descent into madness. It can be argued that both unnamed narrators are equally unreliable because of their behaviorRead Moreâ€Å"The Fall of the House of Usher† and â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper†: A Comparison Introduction2266 Words   |  10 Pages â€Å"The Fall of the House of Usher† and â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper†: A Comparison Introduction Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† has received wide praise for its accurate depiction of madness and the symptoms attributed to mental breakdowns (Shumaker 1985).  Ã‚   While these symptoms may seem obvious from today’s psychological perspective, Gilman was writing at the close of the 19th century when the discipline of psychology was still emerging out of a rudimentary psychiatric approach to treatingRead MoreFiction Essay: Yellow Wallpaper and Story of the Hour1517 Words   |  7 Pagesï » ¿Victoria Reyes English 104-OL5 Professor Steiner September 9, 2013 â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper and Story of The Hour: A Character Analysis† Marriage has often been described as one of the most beautiful and powerful unions one human can form with another. It is the sacred commitment and devotion that two people share in a relationship that makes marriage so appealing since ancient times, up until today. To have and to hold, until death do us part, are the guarantees that two individuals makeRead MoreThe Yellow Wall-Paper: A Classic Piece of Gothic Literature 1215 Words   |  5 Pagesevokes strong feelings of foreboding or fearful anticipation is also essential to this genre. Based upon these criteria, The Yellow Wall-paper is a classic piece of Gothic literature. In it, Charlotte Perkins Gilman utilizes numerous elements of the Gothic tradition to tell the story of one womans descent into madness. The physical setting that Gilman creates in The Yellow Wall-paper certainly evokes a feeling of foreboding or nervous anticipation. At the beginning, the narrator suggests thatRead MoreGothic Elements in Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens Essay2075 Words   |  9 Pagesromance and horror in an attempt to thrill and terrify the reader, yet in the Victorian era ceased to become a dominant literary genre. However themes of the Gothic still survived such as psychological and physical terror, mystery, supernatural and madness. The melancholy atmosphere and persistent melodrama in novels such as ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens are examples of Gothic elements in later novels as the ‘Victorian gothic’ moves away from traditional themes (ruined castles, helpless heroinesRead More Repression of Women Exposed in The Yellow Wallpaper1873 Words   |  8 PagesRepression of Women Exposed in The Yellow Wallpaper      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman gives a brilliant description of the plight of the Victorian woman, and the mental agony that her and many other women were put through as treatment for depression when they found that they were not satisfied by the life they had been given.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the late nineteenth century when the Yellow Wallpaper was written, the role of wife and mother, which