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Similarities Between The Yellow Wallpaper And The House Of Usher

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The manipulation of gothic literature between the authors of “The House of Usher”(written by Edgar Allen Poe) and “The Yellow Wallpaper”(written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman) creates a correspondence between our rendering of the paranormal and its effects on our mental and physical health. Both authors’ uses of gothic literature extenuate the potential of nature’s deterioration and its overall toll it could have on an individual. Although both works are presented in a different time period/setting, and are perceived by the opposite gender, the basis of each protagonists’ slow descent into madness is imputed through their unearthly and sinister surroundings. In “The House of Usher”, the unnamed protagonist witnesses the mental degradation of …show more content…

The narrator, who I will consider unnamed due to the story’s obscurity, devotes many journal entries to describing the wallpaper in the room – its "yellow" smell, its "breakneck" pattern, the missing patches, and the way it leaves yellow smears on the skin and clothing of anyone who touches it. As her time in isolation progresses, the narrator believes that the wallpaper appears to mutate, as the only eye stimulus she has becomes increasingly intriguing as she descents into madness. In contrast to the setting of “The House of Usher”, Gilman focuses on a single aspect throughout the whole story, being the yellow wallpaper. The correlation between the narrator’s sanity and their time within their setting is seemingly evident in both stories. Roderick’s disease, as well as the isolated woman, are never truly diagnosed, further reinforcing the use of ambiguity to create a greater sense of fear, possibly caused by a inhuman like force, which is again, never

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