“ How she betrayed herself that time!
But I am here, and no person touches this paper but ME-not alive!”(387)
This helps convey her distraught mental state and her inability to think clearly.
In addition, the overall tone of the narrator’s writing also changes. At the very beginning she writes with humbleness, stating that her husband knows what is best for her even though she doesn’t believe her treatment is what she needs. By the end the reader can clearly feel a tone of complaint and rebellion in the narrator’s writing.
“ I don't want to go out, and I don't want to have anybody come in, until John comes. I want to astonish him”(387)
Other than the style of writing, the other big clue that leads the reader to believe the narrator is crazy is the way she analyzes the yellow wallpaper. After she was forced to follow the doctor’s strict orders of not doing any type of work, she was left to reflect on the ugly yellow wallpaper in the nursery which was coming off the wall in great patches. At this point she began to trace the patterns of the wallpaper, but the narration was suddenly stopped because her husband was coming. This is also the first part in the story which gives us an idea that the narrator perceives surveillance as a constant threat. Later in the narrative the woman starts to examine the wallpaper again, noticing how the patterns form “eyes” which seemed to be staring at her. She also sees a figure scheming behind the pattern of the wallpaper when the sun shines in a certain way. Once again the narration is abruptly stopped because her sister-in-law was coming. From this point on it is clear that she is obsessed with the wallpaper. The reader also learns that she grows fearful of her husband and sister for they seem to be studying the wallpaper as if they want to understand the pattern before she does. Throughout the whole story the reader gets the feeling that she is being controlled by the people around her. With the yellow wallpaper she has found the one place where she can have supreme control, and nothing will challenge her, apart from her own mind. Ultimately she traded her sanity control. She now controlled her own little world.
“The Tell-Tale Heart” begins quite differently. From the very first sentence the protagonist’s madness is obvious through his desperate insistence that he is sane.
‘‘ True!—nervous—very, very nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?'' (829)
The entire straightforward narrative is told from his point of view in a nervous tone. Through the author’s writing, the narrator's warped logic progressively shows that he is insane. By using a first-person narrative, the author heightens the tension and fear running through the mind of the narrator. There is a clear connection between the language used by the narrator and his psychological state. The narrator switches between calm, logical statements and quick, irrational outbursts. His use of frequent exclamations reveals his extreme nervousness.
“I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!” (829)
The first-person point of view draws the reader into the mind of the insane narrator, allowing the reader to ironically feel for his sick state of mind. At one point, the narrator claims that he loves the old man and has no motive for the murder other than growing dislike of a cloudy film over one of his eyes. Soon after, due to the alarmingly loud beating of the old mans heart, he kills him. Despite the murder, he continues to hear the man's relentless heartbeat. From this point on, it is all to clear to the reader that he is insane. Finally, at the end of the narrative, when the police have come to investigate a shriek the neighbors have reported, the narrator loses it. The sound of the heartbeat had resumed, growing more and more distinct which ultimately caused his confession to the murder
‘‘I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!—here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart!” (832)
In both stories the reader experiences the self-destruction of the narrator. In “the Yellow Wallpaper” it was due to her surroundings, whereas in “the tell-tale Heart” it was a sound in his head (this sound could also have been a clock in the room ticking away). Both of these were cases of obsession, in which the obsession itself enhanced the credibility of the character’s madness. Both narrators did perceive surveillance as a constant threat. As mentioned above, in “the Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator was being controlled (and constantly watched) by the people around her. She felt that she had to hide her feelings and thoughts from them. In “the Tell-Tale Heart” surveillance was a threat due to the fact that the narrator was tired of being watched and judged by the old man. One can conclude that in both cases, the constant surveillance was a key part of their slip into insanity.
