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Loneliness In The Yellow Wallpaper And The Metamorphosis

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Despite the major differences, there seems to be a common theme and moreover also a cause to start telling the story in both The Yellow Wallpaper and The Metamorphosis which is the aspect of loneliness and how each protagonist deals with it ; if they are able to overcome the repercussions it causes to the environment they are part of . In The Yellow Wallpaper, the author describes the narrative of an aged unnamed protagonist, visiting her ancestral place along with her husband John, separated from the commotion of their daily lives in order to initiate the protagonist’s ‘rest cure.’ In the time period (late 1900s) the story is set in, the concept of an mental illness was not established moreover, the protagonist does not display any peripheral …show more content…

Protagonist quotes in the beginning of the story: “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is think about my condition, and I confess it always makes I feel bad. So I will let it alone and talk about the house.” This quote establishes that the protagonist suffers yet doubts herself because she literally hears her husband inside her head, dictating her what is right and wrong and she must instill full trust on him. John however seems to only know his wife superficially. He interacts and sees the “outer” world she presents, but fails to realize the “inside” world of the trapped, struggling women battling the demons of the mental illness. As the story progresses, we see John is not straight up evil, and cares deeply for his wife but both of them are part of an unequal relationship where the protagonist cannot be taken seriously. There is also a sense of John treating her as an object, patient or someone he is not familiar with rather than someone he is married to. The last line of the story is very powerful, “Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time! “John indirectly destroys her with his “resting cure” treatment which is the last thing he wants as he displays his reaction by what seems as fainting and not waking up (dying but is not clear in the text). The protagonist seems more frustrated with his actions in the end then worrisome and even refers to him as “the man” instead of loving calling him by his first name and positively talking about him. She complains of “creeping over” him again and again instead of finding out what went wrong with him. It is also almost as if

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