Malpractice and Malediction in The Marquise of O. and The Yellow Wallpaper In Heinrich Von Kleist's The Marquise of O. and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, the female protagonist is terribly mislabeled. The inaccuracies in treatment, administered by seemingly authoritative and knowledgeable characters -- family members and a medically certified spouse, respectively -- result in tragic deterioration of the state of mind of both the Marquise and The Yellow Wallpaper's narrator. The delineation of each character's weakness is comprised of blatant references to an applied infantile image and approaching unstable mentality. In The Marquise of O, the Marquise is thrust unwillingly into the external world; in The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator is locked away unwillingly in an interior world. Though both are persecuted because of their gender, in The Marquise of O, the Marquise is troubled by the symbolic rebirth of her womanhood; while in The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator is troubled by the symbolic death of her womanhood. Kleist begins his delineation of the Marquise with terms such as "widowed,", "a lady," and "the mother of several well-brought-up children" (Kleist 68). In this introduction the reader learns that the Marquise has experienced both marriage and childbirth. In respect to her deceased husband, the Marquise avoids remarriage and returns to her family's home with her parents, brother and children. The Marquise transforms her role as lover and wife to daughter and mother, therefore stifling an aspect of her womanhood. It is not until she is unknowingly sexually assaulted and made pregnant that her femininity is reborn. The narrator of Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, on the other hand, se... ... middle of paper ... ...mother realize the identity of her daughter's rapist before the Marquise, establishing irony and advancing engagement between reader and text. It is also clear to the reader that by the conclusion of The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator has become maniacal. Though confined to similar situations, Kleist's Marquise and Gilman's narrator are delineated in very different manners. While the Marquise displays boldness and determination in locating her assailant, the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper allows the intriguing wallpaper to take control of her senses. Both stories exhibit the consequence of a mythical diagnosis administered to an initially sane and healthy person. WORKS CITED Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. Ed. Dale H. Bauer. New York: Bedford, 1998. Kleist, Heinrich Von. The Marquise of O-. London: Penguin Books, 1978.
From the moment she is born in the cold, heartless prison, Pearl is placed under scrutiny. The townspeople see her as a visible reminder of sin, and it isn't long until even her own mother searches for evil in her. The girl is described as "the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life!"(Hawthorne 103). With her fascination from an early age with the scarlet letter, Hester believes that Pearl's very reason for existence is to torment her mother. Hester fails to realize that the letter is just something bright and significant to which Pearl reacts; instead, she sees every glance, every word aimed at the letter, every touch of Pearl's tiny fingers to her bosom as an added torture resulting from her adultery. Hester, considering Pearl's very existence, goes so far as to question if the impish child is even her own. "Thou art not my child! Thou art no Pearl of mine!"(Hawthorne 99) she tells Pearl, only half-jokingly. In her own way, she wonders whether Pearl was sent to her by God or by a demon wishing to cause her pain. She is not alone in this speculation; many of the town's citizens believe there is something of the Devil in Pearl.
...blood!"(Hawthorne 162) Dimmesdale's soul is also saved because of Pearl. Pearl makes Dimmesdale feel so horrible that his only option left is to confess. Once Arthur Dimmesdale confesses to the town his sin, "Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief in which the wild infant bore her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. Towards her mother, too, Pearl's errand as a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled." (Hawthorne 180) Throughout the book, pearl is described as a devil child, an imp, but when Dimmesdale confesses, all emotions run out of Pearl, her immortal character changes and she turns into a real human being with feelings, all that Hester wants for her child. Pearl's purpose to her mother and Dimmesdale is now complete.
Intriguing things such as madness, hallucinations, paranoia, and depression are all traits that make a story memorable and interesting. However, there is more than just madness contained in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Through the use of an unnamed narrator, Gilman depicts how women of her time were trapped by social barriers.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a first person account/narrative of a mentally ill woman who suffers from depression which then later progresses to hallucination disorder. Gilman wants her audience to see, through the narrator's first hand experiences, that in the 19th century mental illness was not taken seriously by physicians and family members, causing the patient’s condition to deteriorate.
“The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Gilman)” embodies the idea that imprisonment in the “yellow wallpaper” room was the cause of the narrator’s absolute madness, as seen how her character changes and at the end and she no longer addresses her husband as John but “that man”. When reading the story we can see the narrator is being oppressed by her husband, “John is a physician, and perhaps – (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) – perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster” (p.g.1). This quote shows us how the narrator is trapped and can’t express her feelings fearing her husband. The helpless sensation of oppression and being trapped leads the narrator to madness and we can witness the whole scene unfold. From her change in attitude to obsession with the wallpaper and the illusion of herself as the woman behind the wallpaper.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” explores how a loss of freedom affects one’s sanity. Through John’s treatment of the narrator and the narrator’s resulting thoughts and actions, the short story suggests that denying others their freedom is disastrous to their mental health. Ultimately, John contributes to this theme by assuming absolute control of the narrator’s life, which eventually drives her insane.
In Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the protagonist, Jane, gives an account of her current depression-stricken state that seems to be misunderstood by those close to her. The story is written in a journal-like style from a first person point of view. Jane, suffering from a sort of illness—which she believes others have belittled to nervous depression—has been given strict orders to do nothing in an attempt to cure her sickness. Although her physician husband, John, seems to take care of her by providing a stay at a summer vacation home, she begins to resent him and sees him as imprisoning. She hides her thoughts from him and uses a secret journal as an escape to express her true feelings. At first, Jane hates the yellow wallpaper in her room; but after spending many hours in isolation there, the yellow wallpaper begins to fascinate Jane. Soon, it dominates her thinking and she becomes unusually obsessed with it, identifying with the woman in the wallpaper who seems to be trapped. Eventually, Jane becomes extremely crazy and although she wants to gain freedom, the story ends with her being trapped more than ever by her own crazed state of mind. Throughout the story, the author incorporates literary elements such as irony, imagery, and symbolism to help the reader understand and identify with Jane.
Charlotte Perkins Gillman and Edgar Allen Poe are both well-known and greatly respected writers in history with similar, but unique writing styles. They both use an unreliable narrator to mislead the reader, but slowly drop hints that something is a little off. In Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper she tells a story narrated by a woman in the late 19th century who has been ordered to get as much rest as possible because of her “temporary nervous depression.” As the story progresses, she starts to slowly lose her sanity from being condemned in her room for so long, and eventually develops a scary obsession with the wallpaper. Poe’s short story, the Cask of Amontillado, is narrated by an Italian man named Montresor who has vowed to get revenge for
Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman tells her readers the story of a woman desperate to be free. Gilman’s use of symbolism is nothing short of brilliant in telling the story of a new mother suffering from postpartum depression and fighting her way through societies ideas of what a woman should be. When her husband, John, also known as her physician, tells her nothing is wrong with her mind, at first she believes him because she knows that society tells her she should. However, with her husband’s misdiagnosis, or attempt to keep his wife sane for the sake of their reputation, comes a short journey into madness for his wife, Jane. Jane’s downward spiral, as one may call it, turns out to be not so downward when the reader
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is written in the first person narrative of a women's secret journal and her descent into madness. With the medical community of the nineteenth century misunderstanding and mistreating women, despite the protests of women. The treatment that John, the narrator’s husband, offers does not help at all, in fact throughout the story the narrator’s journal entrees and condition progressively worsens. Spending the summer in an abandoned mansion in order to recover from what her physician husband believes is a “temporary nervous depression- a slight hysterical tendency” (648). Her husband does not believe that her illness is serious the narrator states,“You see he does not believe I am sick” (647)! According to history men thought that they knew better than women, especially women who were “hysterical.” ...
“The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the story of a woman who is trapped in a room covered in yellow wallpaper. The story is one that is perplexing in that the narrator is arguably both the protagonist as well as the antagonist. In the story, the woman, who is the main character, struggles with herself indirectly which results in her descent into madness. The main conflicts transpires between the narrator and her husband John who uses his power as a highly recognize male physician to control his wife by placing limitations on her, forcing her to behave as a sick woman. Hence he forced himself as the superior in their marriage and relationship being the sole decision make. Therefore it can be said what occurred externally resulted in the central conflict of” “The Yellow Wallpaper being internal. The narrator uses the wallpaper as a symbol of authenticy. Hence she internalizes her frustrations rather then openly discussing them.
Pearl is an offspring of sin whose life revolves around the affair between her mother and Reverend Dimmesdale. Due to her mother's intense guilt during her upbringing, she is not able to become more than a mirror image of her surroundings; like a chameleon, she mimics everything around her, and the changes that occur externally affect her internally. Pearl stands out as a radiant child implicated by the sin of her parents. Without a doubt, if Pearl hadn't been born and such a burden had not been put upon Hester, she would have experienced a life without visible ridicule. It is only when the sin is publicly revealed that she is liberated by the truth.
Treichler, Paula. "Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in 'The Yellow Wallpaper'." Rpt. Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism Vol. 37. Detroit: Gale 1991. 188-194.
Pearl is Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale’s daughter, but she is much more than that. She represents her parents’ sin, and the puritan community sees her as the devil’s work. She is a constant reminder that Hester committed adultery. In chapter eight, Hester tells the pious committee what Pearl means to her. “She is my happiness! — she is my torture . . . See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution for my sin?" (Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter). This shows that Pearl is more of an object of symbolism than an actual character. She also serves as the connecting link between Hester and Dimmesdale. She represents their love and passion for each other. “Pearl was the oneness of their being. Be the foregone evil what it might, how could they doubt that their earthly lives and future destinies were conjoined, when they beheld at once the material union, and the spiritual idea, in whom they met, and were to dwell immortally together?” (Baym and Levine, pg.563). Pearl is also a physical consequence of Hester and Dimmesdale’s sexual sin. Although Pearl is often looked at as a negative symbol, she is a positive blessing in Hester’s
In conclusion, throughout the book "Islam the Straight Path", many understandings come about by looking at the many struggles of any particular community. For the purpose of this book review, I went through the book to grasp an understanding of the title "The Straight Path". For many centuries Muslims around the world have experienced the transformation of their society. The important forces that build Islam and Muslims together are the religious life, faith, beliefs and practices. Today Muslims around the world face many challenges of leaders that build the community whether it is a secular or an