The Yellow Wallpaper and the Swimmer

Denial is the refusal to recognize or acknowledge information. Charlotte Perkins Gilman and John Cheever intriguing stories display the struggle of two characters through imagery and symbolism. In the yellow wallpaper, Charlotte Gilman demonstrates the oppression of women by society while showing the struggle to be set free. Alternatively, John Cheever conveys the ignorance of a man’s downfall through time. However, the yellow paper and the swimmer both show gradual loss of reality as the characters oppress their problems while they strive to fit in with the norms of society.
The yellow wallpaper takes the readers on a journey that captures the mind through the powerful and vivid imagination of the narrator written diary showing imagery through her words and thoughts. Suppressed by her dominant husband, the creative narrator finds escape through her writing, which she uses to tell her story. The story begins when a socially accepted husband, a physician, tries to “fix” his wife to fit the standard of society; nevertheless, it only leads to her destruction. Forced to be normal, “so I take pains to control myself”, she puts on a façade to retain her marriage and social standing by acting as though her depression has not won the struggle. (Gilman)
The swimmer, a journey of time that indicates the life of a man living in denial as the days or possibly years goes by. Living in a high classed suburbia, “…had a vague and modest idea of himself as a legendary figure”, Ned thinks highly of himself and less of others.(Cheever) He feels as though he could do anything, a brave explorer he was, set on an adventure to cross the county of swimming pools or as he called it Lucinda River. As he embarks on his journey he encounters various people of who was or is close to him. Although motivated by alcohol through the story, it served as an escape from reality and social acceptance. From pool to pool Ned gets weaker and less reluctant to go on as the season changes.
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