Spiraling into Madness

Jade Hickman

Professor Voyu

English 2

March 19th, 2018

Spiraling into Madness

Have you ever wondered what happens when a character spirals into madness? What results in a character becoming mad? In “Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman the narrator’s madness becomes the narrator’s self-destructing antagonist. The circumstances and mental deterioration between both narrators is different. However, we learn by the end of both stories that the narrators become consumed by madness.

In “Tell-Tale Heart” the narrator blames his “disease” for killing the old man. He says the “disease had sharpened his senses, not destroyed, not dulled them” (Poe 68). He said he heard
“all things in the heaven and in the earth” and questions how he is “mad” to the audience. (Poe 68). The madness starts off small and grows throughout the story.  The narrator says that he “loved the old man” … “he had never wronged me” … “one of his eyes that resembled a vulture” (Poe 68). “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold” (Poe 68). The eye of the old man sends him spiraling further into madness. The eye bothers him so much that he plans to rid himself of the eye forever by murdering the old man. He murders the old man without being caught and is proud of his accomplishment. When the police enter his home, the narrator is filled with feelings of guilt and he begins to imagine hearing the old man’s heart beat. “I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here, here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!” (Poe 72). He murders the old man and continues hearing the old man’s heart beat underneath the floor, slowly spiraling him into madness and his only way of saving himself is to admit the crime.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator becomes mad from being isolated and under complete control by her husband. The narrator’s husband, John, assumes the best thing for her is to rest in bed. Her husband doesn’t believe she is sick, but the wife is convinced that she is “You see he does not believe I am sick!” (Perkins 192). To regain her health, the narrator is “forbidden to work again” (Perkins 192). Her husband insists that keeping her confined with little interaction to the outside world and distractions will “cure” her. However, this “cure” makes her progressively worse and she slowly descends into madness. The narrator becomes preoccupied by the yellow wallpaper in the room. She says that she “never saw a worse paper” in her life. She stares at the wallpaper and sees “a woman stooping and creeping about behind that pattern” (Perkins 199). The woman she saw behind the wallpaper makes her uncomfortable and she talks to her husband about leaving. John tells her that she’s getting better and go to back to bed. She starts to identify with the woman behind the wallpaper. The woman behind the wallpaper represents her desire to leave the room. By the end, her husband faints after seeing her creeping around the wallpaper and says that “I had to creep over him every time!” (Perkins 207). It’s clear the narrator has been consumed by her madness from being isolated and under complete control by her husband. This shows how the narrator slowly becomes mad from being locked inside the room and limited of her free-will and desires to be like the woman behind the wallpaper.