Unreliable Narration In The Yellow Wallpaper

Unreliable Narration in The Yellow Wallpaper Sanity is a concept varying as much in works of fiction as in real life experience. In Strawberry Spring by Stephen King, the main character is so consumed by insanity that he brutally murders women on his college campus without even being aware of his actions. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe tells of a man who murdered an innocent old man and was so consumed by guilt that he experienced hallucinations which consumed his entire mind. The final story, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is about a young wife whose husband prescribes her the “resting cure” for a nervous condition until she finally loses all sanity due to the extreme isolation. Clearly, each of these narrators is certifiably insane and unreliable. The narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper is the most unreliable narrator because she has frequent hallucinations due to constant isolation and is treated as a child by her husband, leaving her with no control over her life. The woman in the The Yellow Wallpaper frequently experiences hallucinations which distort her view of reality. It can be said that the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart also experiences the hallucination of a beating heart which is not reality and makes him unreliable. However, the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper ends up far more …show more content…
The narrator hallucinates motion in stationary wallpaper and goes so far as to conjure up the existence of a fictional woman in her mind. While the narrator believes at the end of the story that she has escaped her husband’s control, she only falls completely to the hand of insanity, leaving her an immensely unreliable narrator. It’s evident through this descent into insanity that complete control over one’s life may lead them only to become unreliable and