Credible Narration in The Yellow Wallpaper: Does Intent Play into it?
Stuck in a room while insanity slowly creeps in, a creative mind will find anyway to try and keep busy, even if that causes one to find meaning where meaning cant be usually be found. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is the devastatingly real account of a woman’s slow decent into utter insanity caused by a commonly implied cure called the “rest cure”. One conundrum we find ourselves having to deal with whilst reading this story is deciding whether or not we are getting reliable information due to the mental stability of our narrator. Usually when dealing with a narrator such as Jane I would assume that the credibility of the of the narration to be low, but …show more content…
By the end of the story we can see a complete spiral into what can only be described as a mental breakdown characterized by complete dissociation on the narrators part, hallucinations, and a complete distrust of everyone around her. "‘I've got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!’"(167). In this quote we realize that not only does she believe she was the woman she saw in the wallpaper she also refers to herself giving the idea that she does not believe she is Jane anymore. Do to the spiral into this mental breakdown one has to ask, how much of the information we are getting is credible if the narrator can’t even tell who she is anymore? The middle ground, when it comes to The Yellow Wallpaper, is that we have to take what our narrator is telling us with a grain of salt. Although we cannot be sure of what is actually happening out side the mind of Jane, for the purpose of the story, that is the only thing we really need to be privy too. The intent of this story was clear from the beginning, open up the mind of the reader to what improper treatment of mental health can do, and for that purpose I do think Jane is the right narrator for the
Stuck in a room while insanity slowly creeps in, a creative mind will find anyway to try and keep busy, even if that causes one to find meaning where meaning cant be usually be found. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is the devastatingly real account of a woman’s slow decent into utter insanity caused by a commonly implied cure called the “rest cure”. One conundrum we find ourselves having to deal with whilst reading this story is deciding whether or not we are getting reliable information due to the mental stability of our narrator. Usually when dealing with a narrator such as Jane I would assume that the credibility of the of the narration to be low, but …show more content…
By the end of the story we can see a complete spiral into what can only be described as a mental breakdown characterized by complete dissociation on the narrators part, hallucinations, and a complete distrust of everyone around her. "‘I've got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!’"(167). In this quote we realize that not only does she believe she was the woman she saw in the wallpaper she also refers to herself giving the idea that she does not believe she is Jane anymore. Do to the spiral into this mental breakdown one has to ask, how much of the information we are getting is credible if the narrator can’t even tell who she is anymore? The middle ground, when it comes to The Yellow Wallpaper, is that we have to take what our narrator is telling us with a grain of salt. Although we cannot be sure of what is actually happening out side the mind of Jane, for the purpose of the story, that is the only thing we really need to be privy too. The intent of this story was clear from the beginning, open up the mind of the reader to what improper treatment of mental health can do, and for that purpose I do think Jane is the right narrator for the