Essay Comparing The Yellow Wallpaper And The Open Boat
645 Words3 Pages
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Open Boat,” by Stephen Crane, similar themes of setting, perspective, and tone shifts can be found. These two short stories display the effects of long-term isolation, showing the mental breakdown of characters in similar style. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," the plot is set in an old isolated house that is far from the road. At first the narrator seems decently reliable, although a few of her observations seem to be inaccurate, as she seems to be repressing any negative emotion. As the narrative moves on, her tone remains positive as she divulges into strange subjects, and towards the end, when she acts on her mental instability by tearing down the wallpaper, her strangely positive, normal sounding tone is awkwardly used in sentences describing her doing these insane things.…show more content… Through the perspective of four characters: The Correspondent, The Captain, The Cook, and The Oiler, a sense of human reaction to dire situations prevails. The captain is the leader, showing cool, unrelenting will and decisiveness, the cook is the follower, the Oiler shows the innocent, everyday man, who adapts to the role of being the enforcer, instilling confidence in the others, and the correspondent spectates. The tone in this story uses sarcasm to convey the absurdity experience by the men, and similar to the "The Yellow Wallpaper," a seemingly too light tone is used to describe the struggle of these men. While these short stories are differ from each other in plot, their themes relate to each other as they convey the same message: those who are isolated, will feel insignificant, and therefore will