Praise Uyo
ENGL 121
Jillian Richardson
November 10th, 2014
The Similarities and Differences in the Causes of Attitudes in Charlotte Stetson’s The Yellow Wallpaper and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde
In Charlotte Stetson’s gothic short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the unnamed narrator and Dr Jekyll display common attitudes that are influenced by the situations they find themselves. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the unnamed narrator is a woman going through post-partum depression who is subjected to a rest cure by her husband, brother and family members. Over time, her attitude changes and she acts differently to everyone around …show more content…
This ranking prevents him from doing the things he enjoys doing and thus forces him to create a personality that allows him to do his bidding. This personality is embodied in Mr Hyde, who he refers to as “the evil side of [his] nature” (Stevenson 81). The societal expectations placed on both characters leads to a gradual change in their attitudes, and this is highly detrimental to both in the end. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is subjected to the influence of a much smaller society that includes her husband, brother, sister-in-law and other family members. However, in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there is a much larger societal influence, including a group of other prominent men like himself, neighbours, and the general society of people living in the city where he stays. These societal influences on the attitudes of both characters are based on the …show more content…
This is shown in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde through the unnamed narrator and Dr Jekyll respectively. In both cases, there is gradual evolution from perfect sanity and a healthy mindset to depression and emotional trauma, and then to madness or outright insanity. The unnamed narrator expresses this when she begins to hallucinate, few days after she has been confined to her rest cure. This is evident when she says that “There is one marked peculiarity about [the] paper, a thing nobody seems to notice but myself” (Stetson 653), a clear symptom of hallucination. She begins to notice fine details about the paper which she carefully describes on pages 650-651; details which no one else will otherwise notice, like the way it is shaped on the wall, the particular shade of yellow and what it looks like both during the day and night. Towards the end of the story, she displays a great deal of psychological instability that causes her husband/physician to ask her “What is the matter[…]what are you doing?” (Stetson 656). Basically, her behaviour towards him was different when she states almost immediately afterwards “I’ve got out at last...you can’t put me back!” (Stetson 656); which she states as a result of her mentally deranged condition. In the same way, Dr Jekyll acts in a mentally unstable way in the body of Mr Hyde,
ENGL 121
Jillian Richardson
November 10th, 2014
The Similarities and Differences in the Causes of Attitudes in Charlotte Stetson’s The Yellow Wallpaper and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde
In Charlotte Stetson’s gothic short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the unnamed narrator and Dr Jekyll display common attitudes that are influenced by the situations they find themselves. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the unnamed narrator is a woman going through post-partum depression who is subjected to a rest cure by her husband, brother and family members. Over time, her attitude changes and she acts differently to everyone around …show more content…
This ranking prevents him from doing the things he enjoys doing and thus forces him to create a personality that allows him to do his bidding. This personality is embodied in Mr Hyde, who he refers to as “the evil side of [his] nature” (Stevenson 81). The societal expectations placed on both characters leads to a gradual change in their attitudes, and this is highly detrimental to both in the end. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is subjected to the influence of a much smaller society that includes her husband, brother, sister-in-law and other family members. However, in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there is a much larger societal influence, including a group of other prominent men like himself, neighbours, and the general society of people living in the city where he stays. These societal influences on the attitudes of both characters are based on the …show more content…
This is shown in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde through the unnamed narrator and Dr Jekyll respectively. In both cases, there is gradual evolution from perfect sanity and a healthy mindset to depression and emotional trauma, and then to madness or outright insanity. The unnamed narrator expresses this when she begins to hallucinate, few days after she has been confined to her rest cure. This is evident when she says that “There is one marked peculiarity about [the] paper, a thing nobody seems to notice but myself” (Stetson 653), a clear symptom of hallucination. She begins to notice fine details about the paper which she carefully describes on pages 650-651; details which no one else will otherwise notice, like the way it is shaped on the wall, the particular shade of yellow and what it looks like both during the day and night. Towards the end of the story, she displays a great deal of psychological instability that causes her husband/physician to ask her “What is the matter[…]what are you doing?” (Stetson 656). Basically, her behaviour towards him was different when she states almost immediately afterwards “I’ve got out at last...you can’t put me back!” (Stetson 656); which she states as a result of her mentally deranged condition. In the same way, Dr Jekyll acts in a mentally unstable way in the body of Mr Hyde,