Evidence in Other Gothic Works

Evidence in Other Gothic Works

"Bartleby, the Scrivener"

In this short story written by Herman Melville, we see a scrivener named Bartleby who begins to work at a lawyer's office as a copyist. He is great at his job but after just a few days he refuses to do majority of the work that the head lawyer asks of him. He simply replies to everything with "I would prefer not to" and shows little emotion throughout the duration of the story. The lawyer later finds out that Bartleby is refusing to leave because he is living in the office. This is an even greater sign to the lawyer that something is not right with Bartleby's brain. At the end of the story, after his arrest, Bartleby dies in prison after refusing to eat and simply replying to the guards with "I would prefer not to". I am unsure of what mental illness he was suffering from but I do believe Melville does a great job depicting the hopelessness that Bartleby was feeling. The lawyer believes that Bartleby worked in a dead letter office which may have had negative effect on his mental health.

"The Yellow Wallpaper"

In this short story, the narrator and her husband John rent a beautiful home for the summer. He is a very high ranking physician and feels as though she has a "temporary nervous depression" (Gilman 20). This is nothing to worry about and can easily be fixed if she does absolutely nothing but rest for a few days in a room of the large house. Rather than choosing a small pretty room on the first floor, a large and somewhat empty room is chosen by the doctor who the narrator always obeys. As time goes on, she begins to lose her mind further becoming obsessed with the yellow wallpaper coating the walls. She is convinced that there is a woman trapped inside of the wallpaper: "And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don't like it a bit" (Gilman 296-297). This is where she really begins to lose her mind. Towards the end of the story the narrator believes she can free the woman by tearing the wallpaper off of the wall. At this point, it becomes apparent that she has developed a somewhat severe mental illness.