The Unreliability of the First-Person Narrator in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and in Poe’s “The Black Cat”

The reliability of a tale depends mostly on the readers’ interpretations or views of the story, which are based on what the narrators convey. The subjectivity of the first-person narrators of Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Poe’s “The Black Cat” tends to raise doubts on the trustworthiness of the narrators and the stories narrated. In such narratives, the reader needs to work out his/her analysis of the story in order to bring out a convincing meaning since what their narrators convey is quite limited and subjective. It is therefor difficult to rely solely on what these narrators say as, for Gilman’s protagonist, she is psychologically impaired by her nervous depression; or, for Poe’s protagonist, he is addicted to alcohol leading him to commit uncontrolled vile actions. The fact that both narrators have such weaknesses puts their reliability into question; the reader needs to reconsider the story through a new interpretation for a more convincing meaning.
“The Black Cat” as well as “The Yellow Wallpaper” use first-person narrators in which the source of perception through which the reader acquaints to the story is limited and subjective; implying the unreliability of both narrators and the story they narrate. The story conveyed in both passages is seen through the protagonists’ point of view; yet, both narrators are psychologically fragile. Poe’s narrator is psychologically weak. He is addicted to alcohol. He seems powerless towards this illness that destroys him more and more, and makes him lost his self-control. Each time he is back home “much intoxicated”; he becomes moody and violent towards his wife and his animals. The least comment irritates him leading him to commit perverse and terrifying actions. He gradually moves from the simply ill - treatment of his animals to the savage removal, with a penknife, of one of Pluto (his cat)’s eyes