In order to continue enjoying our site, we ask that you confirm your identity as a human. Thank you very much for your cooperation. The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story full of imaginative symbolism and descriptive settings. However, without the narrator’s unique point of view and how it affects her perception of her environment, the story would fail to inform the reader of the narrator’s emotional plummet. The gothic function of the short story is to allow the reader to be with the narrator as she gradually loses her sanity and the point of view of the narrator is key in ensuring the reader has an understanding of the narrator’s emotional and mental state throughout the story. It’s clear from the beginning of the story that the narrator’s point of view greatly differs from that of her husband’s and other family in her life. Right…show more content…
Extracts from this document... How effective is the use of first person narrative in "The Yellow Wallpaper"? Michael towers The yellow wallpaper is a story dominated by the protagonist, as she is isolated from the world and society except for the servant girl Jennie and her husband John. The advantages of using first person narrative in this article are the strong emotional and mental link with the protagonist, which can be portrayed much more effectively than any other perspective of the story. Also the point of view on Johns and the other characters, however few, actions and comments are biased to the protagonists thoughts and feelings. The protagonist also has a closer relationship with the audience than if it were in another perspective and the reader had more segregation from the main character. The first person perspective allow the protagonist to collude with the reader, this collusion would not be possible with third person perspective and second person perspective could only give another persons view of the events and with this story they would have had to have been a fly on the wall. ...read more. A biased opinion can be given by the first person narrative, this opinion shows John to be acting against the will of the protagonist, but because of her social place at the time it was seen as wrong for her to question him so she puts her views on paper "you see he does not believe I am sick! And what is one to do?" The story cannot portray Johns reasons for her confinement or his banning of writing and any mental exercise. The first person view can show the deterioration of the protagonists' mental state as she slides into delusion. At the beginning of the text she admits that there is something wrong "I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition." But later on she shows here blatant derangement "This bed will not move! I tried to lift it and push it until I was lame, and then I got so angry I bit off ...read more. this is a less obsessive and much brighter view of the paper. This story of "The Yellow Wallpaper" would not have the same powerful effect on the reader if it were written from another point of view. The protagonist could not collude with the audience, she could not ask rhetorical questions and she could not make the reader involved with her defiant, secret acts of writing. The reader could not feel as if they were hiding with her and the reader could not be persuaded to take her side on the issues arising from the paper and her confinement. The whole script would be a hollow and boring case study of a seemingly mad woman if it was not told by her, she brings life to the story. The protagonist could not ask "but what is one to do?" with the same half asking the audience. I think that the effectiveness of the first person perspective in "the Yellow Wallpaper" is much more involving for the reader and it makes the story seem more real than any other way of writing. ...read more.
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The Yellow Wallpaper from the Point of View of a Doctor's Wife "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story told from the first person point of view of a doctor's wife who has nervous condition. The first person standpoint gives the reader access only to the woman’s thoughts, and thus, is limited. The limited viewpoint of this story helps the reader to experience a feeling of isolation, just as the wife feels throughout the story. The point of view is also limited in that the story takes places in the present, and as a result the wife has no benefit of hindsight, and is never able to actually see that the men in her life are part of the reason she never gets well. This paper will discuss how Gilman’s choice of point of…show more content… |