Unreliable Narrator In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'A & P'

The unreliable narrator is a narrator that the readers cannot trust. The narrator makes mistakes, lies, and has impulsive actions. An unrealized narrator keeps the reader on their feet. They are used as a device to keep readers confused, angry, and sometimes even challenged. In the story “A & P” Sammy’s impulsiveness, and naive ways leads readers to realize his unreliability. In the “Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman creates an unreliable narrator by having readers question weather or not it’s fantasy or reality casts a mysterious setting. Unrealible narrators can also be found in the media such as twitter or facebook and can cause people to believe false information.
In “A & P” the young cashier Sammy is telling the truth in his eyes but he is unreliable …show more content…
The narrator herself claims that she has a nervous condition and claims to be having unusual behavior because of this condition. “The fact is, I am getting a little afraid of John”. Women in the 19th century had a very restricted mind set. They expected to stay home, clean the house and take care of kids. The narrator in this story can be said as unreliable since she has a mindset of a woman who only thinks about the house and the wallpaper. The narrator is also not aware that she is in fact in an insane asylum. The narrator cannot be trusted in this story she is constantly changing her mind and seeing things that aren’t really there. She thinks the wallpaper is moving and someone is behind it. "The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out. I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move and when I came back John was awake". Gilman is making readers choice whether what the narrator is seeing is real or fake. The readers are forced to choice if what is going on is either fantasy or reality. The narrator is untrustworthy because these events aren’t really