Get Paranoid and Creep On

Although Gilman leaves us with a somewhat ambiguous ending, I would argue that the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper is absolutely Jane: a woman with an overbearing husband, possibly postpartum depression, and most definitely schizophrenia.

            The clearest evidence of her schizophrenia appears at the very end when the narrator exclaims, “I've got out at last…in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!” (Gilman 10). We had discussed in class the possibility of Jane having Dissociative Identity Disorder (commonly known as split personality), however, Ms. Bumgarner’s point that she does not switch back and forth got me thinking. First of all, the ending clearly supports the idea that the narrator (Jane in this case) had schizophrenia and suddenly broke from reality and “became” the woman in the wallpaper. More than that, though, several of the narrator’s nervous behaviors throughout the short story could also be explained by schizophrenia. For example, towards the middle of the story, Jane begins to get paranoid that her husband and Jeannie are acting weird and hiding things from her.

“I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and come into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses, and I've caught him several times looking at the paper! And Jennie too. I caught Jennie with her hand on it once. She didn't know I was in the room, and when I asked her in a quiet, a very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner possible, what she was doing with the paper - she turned around as if she had been caught stealing, and looked quite angry” (Gilman 7).

This type of suspicious and paranoid behavior is very characteristic of schizophrenic individuals. They are so caught up in their delusional world that they often cannot tell the difference between the two, or, in Jane’s case, believe that those around them are also absorbed in this world.

            Another interesting factor that points to the idea that the narrator is Jane with schizophrenia is the way in which she seems to suddenly transform from a fairly sane person (possibly stricken with depression, postpartum or otherwise) into a delusional, creeping woman who tears up the walls (and possibly kills her husband?). Oftentimes, people with schizophrenia in their family will go a majority of their lives without experiencing signs of inheriting the disease until around their mid-twenties. We can assume that the narrator is in her early to mid-twenties due to the fact that she is a woman in the 19^th century who just had her first child, thus putting her psychotic break at approximately the perfect time to suggest schizophrenia. Her age combined with the torture of the resting cure that would drive anyone at least a little insane was the perfect formula for a schizophrenic break from reality.

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. N.p., n.d. United States Library of Medicine.

Web. 11 Mar. 2015.

Heart of Darkness as Gothic Literature

Conrad’s Heart of Darkness fits perfectly into the genre of Gothic Literature for several reasons, one of which being its abundance of supernatural elements, a major theme of the club. Take Wuthering Heights, for example, in which Catherine’s ghost roams from the very beginning. The most obvious example of similar supernatural elements within Heart of Darkness is Conrad’s allusion to the Fates towards the beginning of the story. When Marlow enters the office in Belgium, he is greeted by two old women who are knitting black wool and “guarding the door to Darkness” (Conrad 16). Conrad’s description of these women makes it obvious that they represent the Fates who are “knitting” the black thread of fate. Not only is this a substantial example of supernatural elements, but Marlow also runs in to several other supernatural situations, such as Kurtz’s ominous last words: “the horror, the horror” (Conrad).

Aside from the explicitly supernatural elements of Heart of Darkness, there are also many moments of pure horror woven throughout the text. Some of these horrific moments are literal moments that occur to and around Marlow, such as when he notices the human heads being used as decoration on Kurtz’s fence. The constant demise of characters within the book, such as the man that Marlow replaces as well as Maslow’s helmsman, also contributes to the literal horror within the novel. More importantly, though, as the title suggests, many of these horrific moments that help categorize Heart of Darkness as a Gothic novel occur within the hearts of the men that Marlow meets. From the evil of the greedy manager, to the lunacies of the mentally ill Kurtz, to the obscure traditions of the natives, Marlow sees the different types of evil within their hearts, thus contributing to Heart of Darkness as a perfect example of a piece of Gothic literature.

Works Cited

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York, Penguins: 1999. Print.