In the short story “The Mark on The Wall” the narrator explain how the narrator is struggling to comprehend what is going on around her surroundings. The narrator is described to be a woman who is distracted by everything she see,everything she puts her eyes on gives her a story or flashback causing her to loose focus to the initial item she was observing in the beginning. In a way her distractions can signify her inability to focus on the war.In the beginning of the story the author really tries to portray how much of a surprise and bother it was to the main character when she first seen the mark. The narrator explains throughout the story the difficulties of the main character to focus on current events. In the beginning of the story
Although years have gone by, these recollections are still affecting how he lives. Simply standing in front of the wall reminds the speaker of all of this. The Veterans Memorial takes on a life of its own. While the speaker is in its presense, the wall controls him. It forces him to remember painful memories and even cry, something he promised himself he would not do.
All through the story the yellow wallpaper acts as an antagonist causing her to become very annoyed and disturbed. There is nothing to do in the secluded room but stare at the wallpaper. The narrator tells of the haphazard pattern having no organization or symmetrical plot. Her constant examination of and reflection o...
At one point the author recalls a soldier kicking a dead enemy's head and questioning “what the moral was” in doing so (O’Brien 1183). This sense of remorse towards senselessness and actions that took place in the war show the discontent with events that take place. Contrarily, the author of “The Yellow Wallpaper” questions the reasoning behind the wallpaper and begins to curiously infer why it may be in her room. The protagonist infers that the wallpaper “looks as if a boys’ school had used it” and destroyed it because it was “stripped off” (Gilman 549). The narrator begins to look for answers from a wall with none, which leaves it her tainted imagination to guess what the answers might be.
Her mental state is again revealed a few pages later when she states, "It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight" (Gilman 430). Related to thought disorder is obsession, which the protagonist displays in her relentless thoughts about the yellow wallpaper which covers her bedroom walls. The narrator begins her obsession with the yellow wallpaper at the very beginning of the story. "I never saw a worse paper in my life," she says. "It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study" (Gilman 427)....
This story enhances the literary work for it shows what can happen if you embrace a culture while surrounded by others who are just simply living off the land not being courteous to those who live on it. Her love for this land changed her forever, She is not the same sweet innocent Mary Anne who came off of that helicopter, and she is now one with Vietnam. This is a metaphor for what took place in the lives of soldiers, they go there expecting to just "hump" along but get consumed by the land. It forever changes them so that they will never be the same again. There minds are forever warped, they will go in as one person and leave another. The speaker uses Mary Anne as an accelerated version of a soldier's life to make a dramatic effect. She is to show how much a man changes after war, no matter how hard they try to deny it. The war has became a part of them.
Her tense mind is then further pushed towards insanity by her husband, John. As one of the few characters in the story, John plays a pivotal role in the regression of the narrator’s mind. Again, the narrator uses the wallpaper to convey her emotions. Just as the shapes in the wallpaper become clearer to the narrator, in her mind, she is having the epiphany that John is in control of her.
After reading Charlotte Perkins Gillman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" I have come to think that the narrator does not suffer from hysteria. I have reached this idea from comparing the research I have done on hysteria to her symptoms in the story. In this paper I will discuss why I feel the narrator does not suffer from hysteria but may be suffering from postpartum depression.
Chief’s narration of the happenings in the Oregon asylum in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are remarkable. He provides the best sense of the novel that any reader could hope for. Not merely for the style of which he writes, but because his story is a independent from that of the “main” character, R. P. McMurphy. As Chief recollects, “… I can remember people saying that they didn't think I was listening, so they quit listening to the things I was saying. Lying there in bed I tried to think back when I first notice it” (Kesey 210). This quote creates depth behind the man that stands sweeping the halls and listening into everyone’s conversations. He’s not been placed as a witness to the novel’s story by accident or coincidence, but in actuality he acts and perceives as he does
...lor that made the woman despise it so very much. By being able to understand the various meanings behind the wallpaper the reader is able to fully comprehend the narrative behind the entire story and why her mental health keeps diminishing. The ending of the story reveals that the woman no longer only saw the woman in the walls at night; she began to believe that she actually was said woman.
The narrator makes comments and observations that demonstrate her will to overcome the oppression of the male dominant society. The conflict between her views and those of the society can be seen in the way she interacts physically, mentally, and emotionally with the three most prominent aspects of her life: her husband, John, the yellow wallpaper in her room, and her illness, "temporary nervous depression. " In the end, her illness becomes a method of coping with the injustices forced upon her as a woman. As the reader delves into the narrative, a progression can be seen from the normality the narrator displays early in the passage, to the insanity she demonstrates near the conclusion.
The narrator's detailed description of the wallpaper makes the reader understand the woman is well educated and has a keen eye for detail. The wallpaper evokes an emotional response from her, such as her statement, "It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study . . . " (793).
"The role of the narrator influences the type of relationship we have not only with him or her but also with the story" (Landy 75). This quote was taken from our Literary Studies book in which we have read several stories concerning different styles of narration. Narration is one of the most important components of a story. The characters, plot, setting, and theme are also significant, however the narrator sets the mood and also the pace of the story. Two good examples of narration is the short tale The Zebra Storyteller by Spencer Holst and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. These are stories in which the narrators retain certain styles of narration. An outside book that we have not read is the fairy tale Cinderella. In these three works, the narrators have specific functions or duties to carry throughout the story.
Staging in "Six Characters in Search of an Author" Pirandello's masterpiece, "Six Characters in Search of an Author" is well known for its innovative techniques of characterization, especially in the fullness of character as exhibited by the Stepdaughter and the Father, but it is especially renowned, and rightfully so, for the brilliant staging techniques employed by its author. Pirandello uses his innovative staging techniques specifically to symbolize, within the confines of the theater, the blending of the theater and real life. Chief among these, of course, is the way in which the author involves the audience in his production, to the point which, like a medieval audience, they become part of the action, and indeed, a character in its own right. The use of lines provided in the playbill was the first of its kind; never before had an author dared to ask the members of the audience to perform, even though unpaid, and indeed, paying for the experience themselves.
The way Gilman describes the wallpaper tells of what the narrator's mind is thinking, 'and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide.';(Gillman 206) She doesn't think this on the conscious level but more on the unconscious level. When the narrator writes, '(The designs) destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.';(Gillman 206) She is speaking of her state of mind subconsciously, the narrator is on the brink of losing her mind at this point. Gillman writes, 'There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down. '(Gillman 207) She was explaining how the wallpaper is like a 'watchdog'; or a guard of some type, watching her every move, naturally making her nervous.
There are many different types of events that shape who we are as writers and how we view literacy. Reading and writing is viewed as a chore among a number of people because of bad experiences they had when they were first starting to read and write. In my experience reading and writing has always been something to rejoice, not renounce, and that is because I have had positive memories about them.