Chopin, Jackson, And Gilman Essay, Research Paper
Authors often write literature to have an emotional impact on the reader. These effects vary from work to work, and they may include happiness, sorrow, anger, or shock. Even authors who try to achieve the same effect may go about it in very different ways. This paper discusses three short stories written to shock the reader, but each uses a different method to achieve its effect. While Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” uses a sudden shift in plot at the end of a short narrative, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” gives hints throughout the story preparing the reader for a shocking ending; in contrast, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” shocks its readers through careful character development.
The narrator of Gilman’s 1892 short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a woman who seeks professional medical assistance to treat her mild depression and nervousness; ironically, the treatment is much worse than the illness itself. At the time Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the accepted treatment for depression was complete rest in an isolated environment. The narrator’s husband, a doctor, forces her to undergo this treatment; consequently, he imprisons her in a small room with no one to talk to and nothing to do. When the narrator is trapped in this prison, her only enjoyment is secretly writing in her journal. Since Gilman tells the story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” through this journal, the reader can easily see the narrator’s shocking mental deterioration during her period of imprisonment. She originally thinks her prison room is “The most beautiful place!” and the bars on the windows are “for little children” (231); however, two weeks later, she thinks the room is “atrocious” (232). Her mental state deteriorates rapidly: soon she believes there is a figure in the wallpaper. The narrator later identifies this figure as a woman trapped behind the pattern of the wallpaper. Ironically, her husband believes his treatment is helping her; however, when he enters the narrator’s room at the end of the story, he sees that she has lost nearly all of her sanity: she has torn the wallpaper off the wall to free the imaginary woman trapped behind it. The narrator identifies with her imaginary woman and declares, “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
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back!” (242). The final mental state of the narrator in itself is shocking, but it is even more shocking that her husband would lock her inside a room with no human contact and with nothing to do. Most of today’s readers are shocked that such a treatment would ever be accepted and implemented, especially by the narrator’s own husband.
Families turn on each other and themselves in Shirley Jackson’s 1948 “The Lottery,” which shocks its readers by showing a town that holds an annual lottery to select a person to stone to death. The story begins on a “clear and sunny” day with “blossoming” flowers and “richly green” grass (308). Surprisingly, the villagers are very casual about the lottery, and Mr. Summers, the man who conducts it, is the same man who is charge of the local dances and parties; however, Jackson does give the reader hints throughout the story about the true nature of the lottery. For instance, Mrs. Dunbar and Mrs. Watson both have teenage sons but are without husbands: their husbands were probably killed in previous lotteries. Additionally, the townspeople “grinned at one another humorlessly and nervously” (311) during the drawing, and a few of them talk about other towns that have given up the lottery. Tessie Hutchinson nearly arrives late, as if she is not interested in participating in the event, and when Bill Hutchinson unfolds the “winning” paper with the black spot, she immediately shouts, “You didn’t give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn’t fair!” (312). Each member of the Hutchinson family draws a piece of paper, and Tessie is selected to be stoned to death. Everyone throws stones at her; even her young son. By showing average, civilized people behaving in such a primitive and barbaric manner, Jackson thoroughly shocks the reader. “The Lottery” stresses the fact that things are not always what they appear to be: seemingly peaceful people can be horribly violent underneath, and winning a lottery is not necessarily an event to cheer about.
The theme of appearance versus reality also contributes to shocking the reader in Kate Chopin’s 1894 “The Story of an Hour”; Chopin’s story is very short, but its surprise ending is very effective. When the main character, Louise Mallard, learns from her sister that her husband, Brently, has died in a railroad disaster, Louise “wept at once, with sudden, paralyzed inability to
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accept its significance” (158); however, when she retreats to the privacy of her room, she is held by a “monstrous joy” (159) and proclaims that she is “free” (158). Although her sister thinks she is mourning her husband’s death, Louise is actually elated that “There would be no powerful will bending hers” (159) and “she would live for herself” (159). Then a twist of fate occurs when Brently suddenly enters through the front door: he has actually been “far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one” (159). Louise is so shocked that she has a heart attack, and her sister gives a “piercing cry” (159). When the doctors come to the house, they say “she had died of heart disease &emdash;of joy that kills” (159). Because the narrator speaks only from Louise’s point of view, there is no indication that Brently is still alive and is returning home, and the only hint that there is a surprise ending is at the beginning of the story when the narrator mentions that Louise “was afflicted with a heart trouble” (158).
Appearance versus reality is only one of the methods authors may use to shock the reader. They can achieve this effect in a variety of methods and at different rates. Whereas “The Yellow Wallpaper” achieves its effect through lengthy character development, “The Lottery” and “The Story of an Hour” rely mostly on rapid plot development. “The Lottery” builds up the reader for a shock ending, but “The Story of an Hour” is more sudden. It is not shocking, however, that all three stories successfully impact the reader.