Sympathy for Characters in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Nightingale and the Rose

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Sympathy for Characters in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Nightingale and the Rose "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Nightingale and the Rose" by Oscar Wilde, are two stories in which the authors induce a great feeling of sympathy in the reader. Using character personality, circumstance, language and narrative style, both authors encourage us to sympathise with the main characters in a thought-provoking and often unexpected manner. The main character in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the narrator, whose name, we learn at the end, might be Jane. The reader sympathises with the narrator largely due to her situation. She suffers, it is implied, from post-natal-depression. As she recuperates with her neurasthenia, she is not allowed to do anything but rest, she has "a schedule prescription for each hour in the day" and is especially forbidden from the creative work of writing. Moreover, the narrator is confined to an unpleasant and threatening room, one she strongly dislikes. She states "I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long". The narrator grows progressively insane, up to the very end of the story, where she is found to have locked herself in her room, and is circling it, creeping. The reader sympathises greatly with the narrator in this situation, not merely because she is ill, but also because of the 'cure'; she is disallowed to do the things she loves, and - as is evident at the end of the story - this is extremely damaging for her. Alongside the narrator's situation, her personality produces sympathy in the reader. The narra... ... middle of paper ... ...allpaper, the sentences grow choppy and confusing, grafting together disconnected one-line comments, such as: "I quite enjoy the room, now it's bare again. How those children did tear about here! This bedstead is fairly gnawed! But I must get to work." The narrator's tone changes from naïve and depressed to paranoid and excited, and, as she grows insane, her sentences reflect the state of her mind; she regularly contradicts herself. Towards the end of the story, the narrator changes the topic often, but never fails to return to the subject of the wallpaper, thus exposing her obsession with it. The narrative style induces sympathy, as it shows the reader the deterioration process of the narrator's mind, as she is prevented from making her own choices in life, bound by the ties of a patriarchal society.

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