An Unreliable Narrator In Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

A narrator is a common phrase when dealing with literature. The narrator is responsible for giving the reader the vital information needed for understanding the story. It has long been a common idea that everything told by the narrator is true. However, what if the narrator is not as reliable as we think? What if the narrator lies and gives us information that is not actually true? How are we supposed to know what’s going on in the story and with the characters? Authors like Charlotte Gilman, Sylvia Plath, and Edgar Allan Poe have changed the way we view the narrator in some of their pieces. Works like An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge, Daddy, and Yellow Wallpaper make us question if we should blindly believe every piece of information given …show more content…
The story consists of a woman describing her stay out in the country. However, throughout the story, her feelings change about the house multiple times from feeling refreshed back to being trapped. The narrator describes people walking out in the gardens, but then also describes how isolated the manor is later on in the story. There are details that are described once and never brought up again. The entire story line is inconsistent, and that is caused by the narration. The ending of the story truly solidifies the label of an unreliable narrator, since there is a switching of souls, perhaps, or an alter ego taking over that came from inside the …show more content…
The narrator is responsible for giving the reader information about the story going on around them, but when their own thoughts, and sometimes hallucinations, are added the story then becomes a bit more complicated. Reality is difficult for the narrator to distinguish, which highlights the struggles of mental health and the confusion the person must feel. In these stories, it could be argued that the narration is actually reliable, but from a different perspective of knowing the thoughts of the