The Correlation of Setting and Emotion in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Swimmer” In both short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Swimmer”, the protagonists use the settings to symbolize their emotions and tribulations throughout the story. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Jane was Isolated by her husband In a house, and specifically in a room that brought her to her eventual insanity.
In “The Needy lives in the suburbs, a place that looks like it has everything figured out but in reality it’s full of isolation and emptiness. In both stories, the protagonists use their settings to reflect their lives. It’s used to show how everything is not as it seems on the outside, and there’s Imperfection and darkness behind every seemingly perfect place. As Needy travels through suburbia, he visits different people that he knows In his community and sees the emptiness behind what seems Like a perfect life.
Everyone seems to be happy and fulfilled, but in reality their relationships are hallow, and their lives don’t have much meaning behind the empty facade of having it all figured out. Everyone seems to be very close, but in reality they don’t know much about each other and their relationships are quite impersonal. Needy uses his setting of the superficial preferences of suburbia, to show how bleak and isolated his own life Is.
Although he seems happy and fulfilled, he’s away from the world and has a very empty being. He purposely disconnects himself from people, and his life doesn’t have much depth. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Jane ‘s husband moves her way to a different house so she can get better and come out of what he refuses to believe is depression. It’ an old house that Jane suggests might have once been an asylum, which is crucial to the use of the setting in this story as it is essentially what leads to her Insanity in the end.
She is Isolated In this house, even more specifically In a room, and Isn’t allowed out much. Although It’s supposed to help her get better, it actually puts her deeper Into her madness, and leads to her eventual break down at the end. She becomes consumed by the wallpaper in the room and reflects her infotainment onto a woman that she thinks is trapped in the wallpaper. When she frees the woman, she feels like she is freed too, when in reality she has just hit rock bottom.
The story is also set in a time where women were frequently oppressed by men, as shown by Jane who Is constantly belittled by her husband. In both short stories, the setting Is used to show the situation that the protagonists are In. They are similar in that the setting corresponds with their lives, but they differ in the way they do that. Needy uses the setting to symbolize the correlation between suburban fife and his life and how superficial and empty they are.
Cane’s setting not only contributes to her sickness, but she also reflects her sickness onto the setting when it comes to the wallpaper in the room that she is confined to. The main characters in reflect what the characters go through during the story. Jane goes insane from being trapped in the room in the house that the story is set in. Much like the suburban area that Needy travels through, he is superficially happy, but in reality his life doesn’t have much depth. In both stories, the protagonist’s situations are reflected through the setting.