The great obsession with the afterlife, disorder, and despondency has raised from across the nation. Gothic literature, composed to express that there is nothing in this world for those in dark moments, those who find themselves in deep holes of depression. Literature meant to terrify people in most pleasurable way. Gothic stories like “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, both writers of fictional short stories made with similar structures but different stories. Though both stories are in the branches of Gothic literature, both have different ways of showing how they want to prove their characters have not gone insane.
In the first story, we have a young upper-class woman newly married and a mother who is undergoing care of depression this lady is also called the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and though she does not believe she has an illness, her family is too absurd to realize or to take any responsibility. There is also her husband John he’s a physician who believes that she is completely fine, he gives her the solution of putting her in a restricted room as part of her treatment. As we see in the story we have the narrator who has a very imaginative and natural storytelling character. As the narrator walks into her new house, she says she already feels negative vibes in the house, “ That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don’t care-there is something strange about the house-I can feel it” (Gilman). John took her up to the room a room with a worn out and blot nursery room. She describes the room with lots of windows and a very very irritating wallpaper. She also mentions that the wallpaper is very touchy meaning that many pieces were pulled off. “The color is repellent, almost revolting: a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow turning sunlight” for some reason the wallpaper does not let her be in peace she starts mentioning that there is a lady who’s trying to get out (Gilden). she then refers to this lady as a broken neck lady, as the patches begin to form she say she sees her crawling in trying to get out. Finally, her husband came back from a trip, she said everythingwas fine but the wallpaper was really bothering her. She locked herself in the room and began to walk around the room She really wanted to let the lady out she said she had to go so, she could be free. Her husband begged her and begged her to open the door and that she would be fine if she opens the door, but she did not want to until she let the crawling lady out. Finally, she felt at peace now that she has pulled off all the wallpaper but you do not want to be in the room she, completely went insane.
“I’ve got out, at last, said I and in spite of you and Jane. and I pulled off most of the paper so you can’t put me back” The character now has completely lost her mind and believes she is a completely different character (Gildman). Her husband walked in, he saw in what conditions his wife was in and that she has completely lost it, he began to say why did this happen to her he fainted, she looked over his body and how did the same reflection as the broken neck lady.
Insanity, an illness that makes you make the most regretful things in life, sometimes things you don’t even mean to. in the story we see the narrator struggle with anxiety. The craving he has to kill this man. taking his time to plan out the murder every single little step every single little detail. Wanting to end the life of this man with a pale blue eye, an eye that bothers him completely and refers to it as “the Vulture Eye”. Each night at 12 a.m. he would head to the old man’s room For a week.
Each night he would put a lantern and after he would put the lantern in he would peek his head in extremely slowly open the lantern till a tiny beam of light shines on the old man’s eye. The old man would not wake up the few nights that the narrator would go in and shine the light. Finally, on the 8th night, the old man hears the door and he wakes up the narrator hanged out there for a long time in the dark when he finally heard a scream from the old man he ran into the room quickly open the lantern and shine the light on the eye. The narrator took the old man who has only screamed ones off the bed and then pulls the bed on top of the man. He put his head on the man’s chest just to listen to how slowly the heart would start dying. The narrator was not dumb too as how he would get rid of the body, in a very intelligent way he took the body and began dicing it. After neighbors around heard a loud scream, They called the cops. three policemen came to the narrator claims that the old man is out of town and that he was screamed while he was asleep. “ I took my visitors all over the house. I blamed them search, search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures secure undisturbed.” the narrator claims that there was nothing to fear that he did not do anything wrong instead he made the old man a favor by ending his life to remove the eye (Poe). Though as he started to notice that the cops would not leave, He began to have what is now considered a panic attack.
“No doubt I now grew very pale but I talk more fluently, and with a heightened voice” he did not know what to do has he said he began to heighten his voice which is usually one of the biggest signs the cops get (Poe). He got to the point where he literally would hear the heartbeat in his head and that the noise would not quiet down. “ I arose and argued about triples, and a high key and with violent gesticulations, But the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides as if excited to fury by the observation of the men” (Poe). As the noise grew louder and louder he did not know what to do. The cops begin to smile at him and he said he cannot take the hypocrites miles he did not want to feel that way he must scream or he must die as said in the story. “Villains I shrieked dissemble no more I admit the dead tear up the planks here here! It is the beating of his Hideous Heart!” And though he has gone insane the cops took him most likely an illness that is probably not curable not even with medicine (Poe).
As we can see him both stories the Gothic literature does follow up with either illness, death, disorder or despondency. the way they both claimed that they were not insane or were ill but yet completely did unnatural things. and maybe one was with murder and the other was just completely losing her mind but if we think about it what would have led up to the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” she could also kill her son but yet people are too blind to see what is really going on. In my opinion,
I think both of them have gone insane and their disorder cannot be controlled one of them took more precaution though it was not by her but by those who really loved her. No one seemed to be there for the man who decided to murder the old one. as we can see in the story none of them really took medical attention in a hospital either doctor said they were crazy and they couldn’t do anything about it or they didn’t even try to seek attention because they believed they were not ill but they thought
it was just nervousness. We are supposed to compare the stories themselves I’m going to take this piece also compare it to the world now. We look back and we think why didn’t they search medical attention? Why didn’t their family is going to look after them? Though I can’t say that now and days I can’t say that we have tried a little harder by depression pills or even any type of medication to try to control disorders there is still a small percentage of those who do not want to come out due to the fear of denial. The denial of the world, being ashamed of, considered crazy. I wouldn’t blame them, but as both of these narrators in the stories we can see how both of them have a way of the handle of different sorts. Though if the wallpaper was a person possibly it could have also been murder like the man who killed the older man. both of the writers used Gothic literature to express the harmony of pain.
Nationwide we have seen how the obsession obtain has grown the obsession a feeling sad the obsession of being lost. teenagers who don’t know what they’re doing, and some teenagers who think they are depressed but they probably aren’t. Due to dark writing or stories like Gothic literature, it helps them express and figure out what is really going on if they can relate to what they’re reading. . Literature meant to terrify people in the most pleasurable way. Gothic stories like “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, yet we take no action on them, self-harm is an illness, self-destruction is an illness. Both stories have different ways to express themselves, so do people in like “The Yellow Wallpaper” all we got was the narrator tearing down the wallpaper and the old man being murdered just because the narrator was irritated by his eye, due to an illness without a cure.
