Monologue and Madness in Gilman and Poe: A Comparison

Introduction: Two Monologues, Two Directions

Both Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper and Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado involve extensive use of monologue. Each tale is narrated by a single person whose viewpoints and opinions are delivered directly to the reader, coloring the events of the plot accordingly. However, there are critical distinctions between these two tales and between the monologues their narrators employ. Gilman's story is narrated by a woman whose mental health slowly and inexorably unravels — to her detriment, and that of those who purport to care for her. Poe's story is narrated by a man bent on exacting revenge upon another. Thus, despite the fact that both short stories utilize monologue, the principal difference between them is that the monologue of Gilman's narrator spirals at its conclusion to illustrate her mental illness, whereas the monologue of Poe's narrator becomes more focused and driven at its conclusion as he grows fixated on taking his revenge.

Poe's Narrator: From Passion to Method

The ardor that characterizes each monologue is diametrically opposed in the sense that the passion and brief flirtation with madness that overcomes Poe's narrator at the beginning of his tale is mirrored in Gilman's narrator only at the end of hers. Poe's narrator seems the most distraught and mentally unbalanced at the opening of his work. As his monologue continues, he becomes more resolved and almost "professional" in his deliberate, dedicated killing of Fortunato. At the beginning of the narration, the surplus of emotion that leads him to contemplate murder is unmistakable. Motivated by some unidentifiable "insult," the narrator decides he must "not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt…to him who has done the wrong" (Poe). This passage illustrates the depth of feeling that has possessed the narrator and driven him toward murder.

Murder alone is not enough for him; he wants to commit a kind of killing "with impunity" so that the wrongdoer actually feels the full intensity of the narrator's revenge. This sentiment is less rational than it is pathological, especially when applied to a mortal crime. With feelings such as these at the opening of his narrative, it would be easy to imagine this narrator following the same path as Gilman's narrator and descending into madness. Instead, he becomes less passionate and more methodical as the story progresses — which is precisely the opposite of what happens in Gilman's story.

Gilman's Narrator: The Descent into Madness

The reason Gilman's monologue is so harrowing is that it allows the reader to witness, in excruciating detail, the emotions that possess the narrator and lead to her madness. This dangerous descent is rooted in her circumstances: her physician husband has prevented her from working and insists that she remain isolated from everyone so that she can allegedly rest. The monologue allows the reader to become acquainted with the narrator's mounting hatred of the yellow wallpaper in her room — a hatred so intense that she begins to see things in it. Initially, her obsession is a simple matter of preference; she merely dislikes it. By the time the tale ends, she has become so consumed by that dislike that she loses her grip on reality entirely, believing that objects — including herself — have emerged from the wallpaper: "I've got out at last…in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!" (Gilman). Earlier in her breakdown she exults that she has "peeled off all the paper" and that "the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision!" (Gilman).

This passage, near the end of the narrator's monologue, reveals just how far she has fallen. She has grown so passionate in her hatred of the wallpaper that she perceives parts of it as sentient — capable of enjoyment, filled with eyes and heads. This deranged ardor appears at the conclusion of her monologue, whereas comparable intensity is found at the very beginning of Poe's narrator's monologue. The two arcs are thus inversions of each other.

Conclusion: Opposing Arcs of the Narrative Voice

Overall, the similarities in the monologues between the two authors involve a descent — one figurative, the other literal — and a noticeable change in the behavior and attitude of the narrators. In Poe's tale the narrator becomes more focused and less emotional as the monologue continues, while in Gilman's story the narrator becomes less focused on reality and increasingly emotionally and mentally unstable as the monologue continues. These opposing arcs demonstrate how the same narrative device — the sustained first-person monologue — can be deployed to opposite ends: in one case to chart a murderer's cold resolve, and in the other to map the harrowing dissolution of a woman's mind.

Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Cask of Amontillado. University of Virginia, 1846. Web.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. Project Gutenberg, 2008. Web.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper." 2008. Web.