Comparison and Contrast Within Shirley Jacksons The Lottery and Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wallpaper.
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are two fascinating stories with much depth. While both stories do not share the same plot, both stories do share similar themes and symbols; however, they are also very different.
There are many similarities in the literary devices both Shirley Jackson and Charlotte Perkins Gilman use in their stories. One theme the two works share is the subordination of women. In The Lottery, the author gives the reader a hint that women are of a lower class than the men in the New England village. One example of this subordination is that the men chose the slip of paper, underscoring their leadership roles. The author also implies that the lottery winner has always possessed qualities that the townspeople found less desirable and that the person chosen was the towns social scapegoat. For example, Mr. Summers wife was a likely victim of the lottery. The townspeople felt sorry for Mr. Summers because he did not have a family. His wife did not have a very good work ethic. Jackson tactfully implies that she was a former victim of the lottery. Women, it seems, are the ones most often at the mercy of the lottery. The women in the story seem to have the least amount of work ethic. The lotterys choice of Tessie Hutchinson was easily predicted. Her lack of work ethic was displayed as she was the only member of the town to arrive to the lottery late (Spark Notes, 2008). The same theme of subordination of women, especially in marriage, holds true in The Yellow Wallpaper. In this story, the narrators husband is the head of the household. The husband is the one who decides what the protagonist is going to do: not write or read, not be allowed out of the house.
Johns assumption of his own superior wisdom and maturity leads him to misjudge, patronize, and dominate his wife, all in the name of helping her. The narrator is reduced to acting like a child, unable to stand up for herself without seeming unreasonable or disloyal. The narrator has no say in even the smallest details of her life, and she retreats into her obsessive fantasy, the only place she can retain some control and exercise the power of her mind (Spark Notes 2008).
The themes in the stories are also similar in that both of the main characters are subjected to victimization. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the main character is a victim to her mental health and to her husband. In the story, her husband takes her away for the summer to a large, secluded house where the narrator must recover from her mental illness. She is forbidden from doing anything active and she is also not allowed to read or write. Her husband leaves her alone, controls her, and gives her disapproving looks when she tries to escape to the outside world. Her seclusion causes her to become fixated with the yellow wallpaper in her room, which eventually leads to the narrator becoming insane. Similarly, in The Lottery, Tessie Hutchinson as well as previous winners of the lottery becomes victim to the townspeople and the villages traditions. Despite many protests, the townspeople stone Tessie to death, oblivious to how evil their annual ritual is. The community is only thinking of their traditions and getting rid of the person with the worst work ethic so they may have a successful harvest.
While these two fascinating stories are similar in the message they are trying to send, they are also different. One theme I found prominent in The Yellow Wallpaper that was not made evident in The Lottery was the importance of self-expression. In The former, the narrator goes insane not because of her mental illness as much as because her husband secludes her from the outside world. Since she is forbidden to read and write, she must resort to hiding a journal that she secretly writes in. The narrator must also hide her anxieties and fears in order to maintain the faade of a happy marriage and the appearance that she is beating her depression (Spark Notes, 2008). In The Lottery, one of the themes is customs and traditions. The Lottery, while cruel and unusual, is something the townspeople have participated in every year. They fear change and continue to participate in the annual event even though the outcome is the death of a neighbor, which makes this story horrific. Another theme in The Lottery that was not in The Yellow Wallpaper was violence and cruelty. While some may argue that the narrators husband John was cruel in the way he treated his wife, in The Lottery, the violence of stoning upon the winner was exceptionally harsh.
Aside from the similarities in themes, The Yellow Wallpaper and The Lottery share symbols. One example is the colors used in both stories. In The Yellow Wallpaper, yellow plays a major part in developing the story. At first, the color yellow represents an unpleasantness: the paper is ripped, soiled, and a dirty yellow. As the story continues, the protagonist becomes obsessed with images popping out of the paper. Clearly, the dingy yellow and hideous pattern is a symbol of the domestic life that traps many women (Spark Notes, 2008). Yellow is also considered the color of sickness or weakness; the sickness from which the writer suffers is the oppression and struggle that continues to this very day of some women.
On the other end of the spectrum, the color black in The Lottery makes a reoccurring appearance. Black typically represents evil and its use in The Lottery represents the corruptive forces of control perpetuating the towns annual lottery, carrying out the selection of an unassuming individual. The author uses black as the color of the box the slips of paper containing a village members fate. Black is also used to represent the dot on the slip of paper everyone chooses, which is basically the mark of death. The townspeople react at the site of the black box for they know their fate is in its hands (Spark Notes 2008).
The symbolism of the two windows and the view from them by the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper is a representation of women in the 19th and 20th century and how men restricted them. The first view is described as I can see the garden, those mysterious deep-shaded arbor, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees (731). The garden symbolizes society, and the use of the word mysterious shows that the possibilities that women have are undiscovered to them. In the next view, the woman describes seeing a lovely view of the bay and a private wharf belonging to the estate. The bay could be a reference to the uncharted territory of womankinds abilities and the private estate is possibly indicating the sections of society forbidden to women.
A symbol in The Lottery is the black box used to hold the slips of paper. The description of the black box could show how the villagers are prisoners to the will of social decree. Jackson describes, The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained (351). A careful reader could assume that there are two meanings to this passage. Theres the physical decay of the box, but there is also the corrupted practice of the lottery and the towns traditions (Spark Notes 2008). Finally, there is the possibility that the box is similar to a coffin. The end result of what is inside the black box is death. This is similar to a coffin because a coffin carries a person that has passed away.
As shown, both stories manage to incorporate many similar ideas. The two stories share themes of subordination of women and victimization; both authors used colors as a form of symbolism as well. The Lottery and The Yellow Wallpaper, while very alike, are also very different. One story involved cruelty and violence and the other contained self-expression; however, these enjoyable stories were more similar than not especially in regard to the oppression of women.
References:
Spark Notes. (2008.) The Yellow Wallpaper: Themes, Motifs, and Symbols. Retrieved July 24, 2008, from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/yellowwallpaper/themes.html
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