American Literature
One of the most charming and striking characteristics of the American literature of the nineteenth century is its naïveté. The protagonists regardless of being positive or negative heroes have a unique trust to the world and people surrounding them. This naïveté adds to the romantic and sincere nature of the poem or short story. It usually enhances the idea mentioned in the story and is intended to emphasize the meaning of it. To a certain degree, it may be taken as a symbol of American literature of the nineteenth century as naïve ideals and naïveté themselves were used to promote the charm of the époque and high spirit of the society of that time America.
The short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” written by Charlotte Perkins Stetson is a perfect example of naiveté in literature. From the first pages, readers get to know a nice and tender girl who just delivered a baby and is going through depression. She herself is the author of the story, and she charms everyone as an example of purity and grace of a woman. Her sincere talks and desperate desire to be with her newborn baby and beloved husband at first may mislead readers and make them even think that her husband intentionally prevents this. Along the entire story, she gets more and more suspicious about the room and focuses too much on details in it. The yellow wall-paper becomes her obsession as well as some other details in the furniture. The beautiful and naïve girl becomes suspicious, and so do readers. However, in the end, the story unveils the fact that the girl was getting sick all along, and the yellow wall-paper became a symbol of her madness.
The girl is naïve about how she sees life. She describes her husband as the pragmatic and thoughtful person, while she is charmed by the world and focused on her house and family. There are lots of descriptive, detailed insights in the story that shows a tender and romantic nature of the author. The girl is an example of naiveté and romance that can be seen clearly from how she treats her family and servants. Childish view on important things adds to the general impression of naiveté and simplicity in the text. Joyful and reckless tone of the text as well as the naïve nature of the heroine can be understood from her description of the house:
The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people (Stetson 648).
The short story “The Open Boat” written by Stephen Crane touches different subject and different feelings. If the first one was focused on family relations and the girl’s feelings, this story is about loss and despair that borders with desire to survive and live. It tells readers about a few people onboard of a small dinghy. They survived a shipwreck, but still are drifting in the middle of the sea with a very little hope to survive. The story tells readers about the relationship between absolutely different people who happen to share limited space and stressful situation. They all focus all their attention on survival, which demands solidarity and assistance from them. The story also touches the subject of a man against the nature and how hostile the latter seems to heroes. The author says, “The waves that came at this time were more fierce. They seemed always to break and roll over the little boat in a mass of boiling white and gray” (Crane 6). Such episodes ruin the general atmosphere of the story that implied that the nature helps people in the boat in their efforts to survive.
In addition, the correspondent, who is the narrator of the story, has a great deal of hope and naïveté in his expectation of survival. He catches every opportunity and every chance of getting closer to the coast and finally be able to touch the ground and be safe. He also sees everyone in the boat as a companion, however, they should be considered as competitors. This naïveté of the correspondent is striking in such circumstances. It is obvious that he is full of hope for everyone, but the nature and reality are fierce. He also faces a great despair and loss when one of the friends, Billie, dies not being able to reach the coast. They all feel the grief very deep as thirty hours of drifting made them really connected.
Works Cited
Crane, Stephen. “The Open Boat.” AmericanEnglish. AmericanEnglish, n.d. https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/the-open-boat.pdf
Stetson, Charlotte. “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” NLM. NLM, n.d. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/literatureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf
