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How did the writers in the stories you

have studied represent madness?

I have been studying 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and 'The Tell Tale Heart' and 'The Black Cat' both by Edgar Allen Poe. In this Essay, I am going to explore the ways in which the writers portray madness. Madness is "The quality or condition of being insane." Or "Fury and rage." Both meanings are displayed in different ways in each story.

In all three stories, the writers use obsession and possessiveness to portray madness. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper pasted in the room that she has been kept within. She was made to rest in a room at the top of the house. This was called "The rest treatment" and was Weir Mitchell's cure to hysteria before Post Natal Depression was discovered; this is what the narrator is actually suffering from. At first she talks about how disgusted she is by the wallpaper. "The colour is repellent, almost revolting, a smouldering unclean yellow" This shows that although she finds the wallpaper disgusting, she seems to pay attention to detail. This becomes more obvious when she starts to become more interested with it, watching it at night and pointing out every detail about the different patterns. "I kept still and watched the moonlight on that undulating wallpaper!" When she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper, she becomes possessive, and notices other people looking at the wallpaper. "I've caught him several times looking at the paper! And Jennie too! I caught Jennie with her hand on it... I am determined that nobody shall find it out but myself!" This shows her obsession and possessiveness of the wallpaper because she gets angry when other people do no more then look at it! As she becomes more obsessed with the paper, her mind deteriorates and she becomes madder. So Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses obsession to portray madness and the deterioration of her characters mind.

In the Tell Tale Heart, the narrator (the gender of the which is unknown) becomes obsessed with the eye of the old man. The eye is described by the narrator as "the eye of a vulture -a pale blue eye, with a film over it" The narrator describes how he loves the old man, and how he had never wronged him. He then speaks of the eye, almost as an excuse for the murder. "Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man... For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!" This excuse could be used to cover up the murder. However it is still no reason to kill someone, which suggests he's mad. Other reasons to suggest he is mad are the ways in which he goes about killing the old man. "Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly- very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening" He takes so long just to get his head through the door, he always opened his lantern the tiniest bit, just so he could see the old mans eye, but every night he found it closed. He was obsessed with the old mans eye and it infuriated him whenever he gazed upon it. This is one way in which Edgar Allen Poe portrays madness - through fury.
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In The Black Cat, the narrator became seems to thrive on violence and drinks way too much alcohol. He uses his alcoholism as an excuse, he says it drives

Sanj m 10E Page 1 1/23/2008

him to madness and murder. "Through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance!" In The Black Cat and the Tell Tale Heart, both narrators use their obsession as an excuse for their behaviour. However, in The Yellow Wallpaper, she doesn't even notice what she's doing. These obsessions are used to portray madness, through fury and violence as well as hate and personal ...

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