The emotional and psychological reader's response in "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "The Blue Hotel"

Résumé du document

"The Yellow Wall-paper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Blue Hotel" by Stephen Crane are two short stories which, beyond the colour references in the title, try to develop certain psychological responses within the reader. I will attempt to show how through two different points of view for narration and other sharp differences, they actually challenge the same psychological question for the reader. The issues of narration, solitary and collective perspectives and conflicts, obsession, mood shifts and rise of madness, "genderization" and open conclusions will be discussed. Readers' responses to a text are very influenced by the narration. In "The Yellow Wall-paper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the story is a first person narration. Moreover, the narrator is homodiegetic, in other terms, she belongs to the story, and she is even the protagonist. Since the readers perceive the text only through her eyes, she becomes very influential. In "The Blue Hotel" by Stephen Crane, it is a regular third person narration in which the narrator is heterodiegetic, that is to say that he or she (although/but there are some clues for a masculine voice) does not belong to the story. Though it will be seen that, even with this seemingly "detached" narration, the opinion of the narrator can influence the reading of the text. With the point of view comes the question of the reliability that the readers have in the narrator.

Extraits

[...] Norton & Company, 6th edition, July 2002. 927- 946. [...]

[...] I had no intention of telling him it was because of the wall-paper would make fun of (Gilman 840). Thus, if the two protagonists are experiencing two very different situations, they are both dragged down into madness. Their descent into madness is due to the fact that both of the protagonists experience conflicts that are, like their perspectives which determine them, opposite. Indeed, the Swede has a conflict with any single person that he meets in the short story, even with the narrator: was like a demoniac” (Crane 938). [...]

[...] The Emotional and Psychological reader's response in Yellow Wallpaper” and Blue Hotel” Yellow Wall-paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Blue Hotel” by Stephen Crane are two short stories which, beyond the color references in the title, try to develop certain psychological responses within the reader. I will attempt to show how through two different narratological points of view and other sharp differences, they actually challenge the same psychological question for the reader. The issues of narratology, solitary and collective perspectives and conflicts, obsession, mood shifts and rise of madness, “genderization” and open conclusions will be discussed. [...]

[...] In Yellow Wall-paper”, the narrator and protagonist are the same. Since the second page of the short story, the readers are acquainted with the fact that the narrator suffers from but temporary nervous depression slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman 833). It is far from being a good start to be trustful. But since the protagonist, mentally disturbed or not, is the only eyes that the readers have to experience the story, they are more or less compelled to give her the benefice of the doubt. [...]

[...] In Blue Hotel”, the Swede's obsessions are multiple. It begins with his idea that they want to kill him, then he claims to have seen Johnnie cheating at the High Five game, and at the end he wants people to drink with him. These obsessions actually reflect his own insecurities. He is a stranger and feels as such, even if he sometimes tries to show the contrary. At the core of both of the short stories lies the theme of madness. [...]