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

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.