Date: July 2011
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1899
semi-autobiographical short story, The
Yellow Wallpaper (henceforth YW),
the narrator, a woman who has recently given birth to her first child, is
tormented by isolation enforced by her husband. Similarly, Ernest Hemingway’s 1933
semi-autobiographical short story A Way
You’ll Never Be (henceforth Way) describes
the tormented mind of Nick Adams, an American volunteer in the Italian army in
World War One, as he tries to complete a propaganda mission. In both stories,
setting is all-important in carrying and underscoring the themes presented,
using the protagonists’ placements within their settings as well as their
interactions with the physical setting. The identification of the microcosm
settings with the larger world serves as warnings in both YW and Way, of the
misguided nature of Victorian ideals and the danger of glorifying war,
respectively.
