Entrapment of the characters is
evident in the short stories The Yellow Wallpaper
and Interpreter of Maladies. Both the
short stories highlight the concept of finding their true selves as they are
trapped within their family. Entrapment of the character in the movie The Truman show resembles the nature of
being trapped in the two short stories. The character and the narrator
Charlotte Gilman in the story The Yellow
Wallpaper experiences loneliness and feels mentally trapped inside her
house in the name of family and medicine. In Interpreter of Maladies, Mrs. Das is a person who is burdened with
secrets that she is unable to share with her family, and longs for companion
ship. In the film The Truman Show,
Truman is caged inside a huge set in which he is raised and filmed from his childhood.
It showcases Truman’s nature of being trapped and his desire for love and
exploration.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman shows the narrator as a person who is
trapped within her house for her family and medication. She is suffering from
nervous depression. She complains that her husband and her doctor, John
restricts her freedom for her treatment. John’s treatment restricts her to do
nothing and take complete rest. She couldn’t talk, work, write or go out of her
house. She feels that writing, and being active keeps her in a good condition.
She says “but what is one to do?”(Gilman 15) this shows her dependency on her
husband and helplessness.
The way in which the narrator
visualizes the house shows that the narrator feels lonely and locked up in the
house. She feels that it would be better if there were people in the pathway
and arbors of the house. She describes the house as quite, back from the road,
far from village which shows her loneliness. She also uses words like walls,
gates that lock, all of which explains the trapped nature of the author.
Everything around her makes her depressing and lonely. She is isolated and
doesn’t have any companionship. All these contribute to the theme of entrapment
in the story. The narrator is alone and is restricted from going out of her
house. She is restricted from leaving her house. Hence, she starts to visualize
things around her. She is moved by the wallpaper in her room. At first, she
sees a boy in the paper. Every day the wallpaper gets clearer to her. She sees
a women moving and trying to get out. The woman tries to break through the
front patterns in the wallpaper. The woman in the wallpaper represents the
author who is trapped inside. The strings in the wallpaper that the woman tries
to break through can be compared to the gates, walls and locks the narrator
describes in her house.
The short story Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri shows character Mrs. Das as
a person who is trapped inside her family circle from her early life. From the
beginning of the story, Mrs. Das doesn’t show interest to her surroundings. She
doesn’t care about her husband or her children. She is burdened with regret and
secrets for eight years. She longs to share them with someone “She did not make
any close friends” (Lahiri 26). She married Mr. Das so young and had a child so
quickly that she couldn’t go out of her house. She describes the things that she
had to do in her house which kept her trapped inside her house “and nursing, and
warming up bottles of milk, and testing their temperature against her rest”
(Lahiri 26). Raj never cared of her after their marriage. She was trapped
inside her house all alone.
Mrs. Das was not restricted from
going out of the house like the narrator of The
Yellow Wallpaper was, but she was so
tired all the time that she couldn’t go outside. She had to sacrifice her
friends and external life for her family “Always tired she declined invitation
from her one or two friends” (Lahiri 26). This shows Mrs. Das entrapment inside
her house. Mrs. Das entrapment is shown all through the story. She doesn’t
express any interest in her surroundings like her daughter and the conversation
between Mr. Das and Mr. Kapasi. She is more involved with her objects like
puffed rice and nail polish. She finds a hope when she knew that Mr. Kapasi was
an interpreter. She thought that he might suggest some remedy. But she remains
depressed and trapped as Mrs. Kapasi doesn’t help her in anyway.
The movie The Truman Show directed by Peter Weir shows a character Truman who
is raised in an artificial city that was created with cameras around which
captures his every day motion for a television show. Truman from his birth
lives inside this artificial closed set. Though he likes to explore things
around him and travel, he couldn’t as he is afraid of water. At one point, he
realizes fakeness around him including his wife. He understands that everything
around him is planned. His need to be free makes him break his fear of water
and travel in a boat. He puts his life behind being free from the fake life he
was living in. As a result, he reaches the end of the fake ocean and steps into
real world he wished to live in.
The character Truman in the movie experiences
similar entrapment as the character in The
Yellow Wallpaper and Interpreter of Maladies
did. Like the narrator and Mrs. Das from the two short stories are trapped
within their house, Truman is trapped inside a fake city. Truman desires to be
free from the artificiality around him. In The
Yellow Wallpaper the narrator compares her entrapment to the wallpaper. The
woman is trapped inside the wallpaper and tries to tear of the strings and free
her out. This is the way the narrator feels about her house. She wants to break
all the walls and gates in her house and be free. Similarly in Interpreter of Maladies the author compares
the entrapment of Mrs. Das to her surroundings. Her entrapment is compared to
puffed rice that she carries in her journey. She doesn’t share it with anyone
else. The same way Truman’s restriction to be free is shown through his fear of
water. But he is able to succeed and overcome his fear as his desire to live in
a true world was strong.
In The Yellow Wallpaper the
narrator fails to express her desire towards freedom. Instead she wrote her
feelings into her closed book. Similarly in the Interpreter of Maladies though Mrs. Das tries to express her
feelings to Mr. Kapasi, she was not brave enough to express her situation to
her husband. On the other hand, Truman in the
Truman Show was able to break his restrictions for his desire to be in a
real world. He overcame his restrictions from the fake family and his fear of water.
His desire to live in a real world had a strong impact on his actions. As a
result, he was able to succeed in his desire. In the case of The Yellow Wallpaper and Interpreter of Maladies, both the
characters though had a desire to be free, they were unable to act on their
desire as they were tied up to their family and role in their family.
Works Cited
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Booth,
Alison. The Norton Introduction to
Litrature.1989
Lahiri, Jhumpa. “Interpreter of Maladies.” Booth, Alison. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 1967.
The Truman Show. Dir.Peter Weir.Perf.Jim Carrey, Laura
Linney, Moah Emmerich, Natascha Mc
Elhone, Holland Taylor, Brain Delate.1998.
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