Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote two short stories from the point of view of two women. One story is in a utopian world, “The Cottegette,” while the other is in a dystopian world, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The short story, “The Cottegette,” showed a woman who loved a man and lived in a beautiful little secluded house. The story ended with them getting engaged because the man loved her for who she was, not because of her domestic skills. Everything in the story was happy with an ideal ending, that is why its utopian. On the other hand, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is very dystopian. The woman lives in misery and oppression because of her illness. The ended is very shocking as well, with the woman “turning into” the trapped woman on the wall. This is dystopian because the story was unfortunate and miserable.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” there are points in the beginning that give us a clue about our narrator’s state of mind. The narrator seems to be quite unreliable. An example of this is when she says,
If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression–a slight hysterical tendency– what is one to do?
This passage shows that her mental stability is questionable. A doctor, who also knows her very well, is saying that she is mentally and emotionally unwell. Another example would be when she describes her feelings toward the wallpaper,
“I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one where two breadths didn’t match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other.”
In this passage, it is shown that paper on a wall makes her feel strong emotions. It is generally an oddity to be so emotional over something so trite. The second part shows that she is personifying this paper and believing in her personifications. It is not easy to believe or rely on someone who is mentally unwell.
