Weinstein

Lindsey Weinstein
Mrs. Pritchard
American Literature
18 December 2015
Within the Subconscious
In Dark Romanticism and Realism, writers explore the subconscious to try and understand
the madness of society. In Sprits of the Dead, a man shares his inner thoughts and deep desires
to be with the spirits of the dead. His psychotic obsession drives him into madness. In The
Yellow Wallpaper, the narrators husband tries to do what is right by leaving her trapped inside
a room. Instead, leaving her inside this room gives her an obsession with the wallpaper and what
she believes is a woman trapped inside of the wallpaper. American Literary movements including
Dark Romanticism and Realism explore the characters mind and thoughts to prove the frailty of
the human psyche.
In Spirits of the Dead, the narrators obsession with his mortality or the death of someone
close drives him insane. The Narrators desire to connect to death and materialize with the
spirits, which causes him to go mad. "Spirits of The Dead" depicts a man in a graveyard, stuck
inside of his subconscious. He is obsessed with all kinds of death such as his future death and
others. The Narrator believes the only way to cope with his madness is to die. His madness is
symbolic of his yearning to be one with the lost souls. The intense imagery describes his wanting
to be one with the souls, Thy soul shall find itself alone/ Mid dark thoughts of the grey
tombstone;/ Not one, of/ all the crowd, to pry/ Into thine hour of secrecy (Poe 1). The symbols
and imagery are used to symbolize the characters unique mental stability. Poe uses
personification to explain dark objects: "Mid dark thoughts of the grey tombstone" (Poe 2). He

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also uses personification, to explain his insanity arising from his perceptions of death. The
narrator produces a theme of profound thoughts of death. The tone relates to the feelings of the
man while he is in the graveyard. Charlotte Perkins Gilmans writing correlates to Spirits of the
Dead for her story of a characters oppressive marriage and the effects it had on her mental
sanity.
The narrator in The Yellow Wallpapers sanity diminishes by her oppressive marriage
and daily life. The narrators obsession with the women behind the wallpaper drives her fragile
mind to insanity due to her entrapment by her husband and her limitations. After being locked in
her room, she begins to see a ghost behind the repulsive yellow wallpaper. She sees a woman in
the wallpaper that is trying to break free from her entrapment. The woman behind the wallpaper
symbolizes her captivity and limitations. When the narrator says, The color is repellent, almost
revolting; a smoldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight" (Gilman 2)
she is using rich imagery to depict the horrendous color of the walls. This explicit description of
the wallpaper explains the narrators disgust of the walls. The narrator is driven into an
obsession, On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of law, that
is a constant irritant to a normal mind (Gilman 6). She is not allowed to think about anything, so
she begins to obsess over the wallpaper and repeatedly uses metaphors to explain her obsession.
The metaphorical setting traps the women in a set of patterns and standards that the narrator
cannot control. The narrator depicts lots of emotions from her postpartum depression including,
anger sadness, anxiety, and more. The story has a close connection to the womans emotions and
feelings. The Narrator is controlled by her marriage and cannot preserve herself from her
postpartum depression and anxiety. Each American literary movement shares a common theme
of characters with mental instability.

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The Dark Romanticism and Realism works are character-centered, and these characters
have a weak mental stability and cope with their insanity inversely. Each Narrator has an
obsession that drives them into lunacy. The narrator becomes fixated on the wallpaper because
the narrator is trapped by the limitations of healing her postpartum depression. The narrator in
Sprits of the Dead, creates this perfect world in his thoughts. His perfect world is death and his
soul living on after his future death. In each literary piece, their madness is constructed to cope
with the dilemma in front of them. Her husband forces the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper
into solitude. The narrator in The Sprits of the Dead yearns to be with the souls who
understand him. The imagery in each of the text describes the two narrators true insanity and
mental instability. In each story, the author uses personification and metaphors to connect the
narrators to significant inanimate objects. Each literary work is character driven, connecting the
readers to the emotions and intellect. The tone of each story is set in the main characters mind,
which is intriguing because these characters have sicknesses of the mind that are driving the
mad.
The madness of society is an uncontrollable illness that controls all characters. The narrator
in The Sprits of the Dead strain of living causes himself to plunge himself into insanity. In
The Yellow Wallpaper, the woman in trapped the walls symbolizes the narrators captivity and
her obsession with the trapped woman causes her to avoid her problems and grow senseless. In
each piece of writing, the characters psychotic obsession drives them into madness. In American
Literary movements, writers explore the inner workings of the human mind to demonstrate the
frailty of the human psyche.