The authors use major characters in the first person participant to narrate both stories, which supports the unreliable narrator. This enhances the story by giving the reader added insight into a subject that he or she is less likely to understand or relate to. Had the story had been told through any other point of view, the reader would not have gotten as clear of a picture as to exactly what is going on in the minds of each character; especially since craziness is not necessarily a quality that everyone can relate to. The unreliable narrator also adds and edge to the stories. Since the author had established, or should I say destroyed, the narrators' credibility, it adds mystery and room for questions in the reader's mind, a guessing game.

In Poe's "Tell Tale Heart", he addresses the audience directly. "You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me" (34). Poe also intensifies the narrator's emotions by the use of first person. "Neve

Personification is defined as a figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstractions are endowed with human qualities or are represented as possessing human form (http://www.dictionary.com). That is exactly what both Poe and Gilman use to bring the objects of their stories to life.

The narrator's use similar syntax to bring the readers deeper into their thoughts. The choppy sentences and complex structures not only pattern the rhythm of their thoughts, but also their stream consciousness. The constant periods, commas, semi-colons and exclamation points show a complex thought pattern, while longer sentences reflect a more stable train of thought.

Although the two authors have very similar styles of writing and techniques to convey a unique sense of mental instability, their pieces have their differences, which include the comparison of violence to larthargia, which most likely comes from the authors personal writing background.

Where as Poe writes his entire story using frazzled syntax, Gilman uses it to show her characters progression of her illness. She begins, "it is very seldom that mere ordinary people, like John and myself, secure ancestral halls for the summer" (469). The narrator tone is calm and chatty. As the story

Some common words found in the essay are:
Tale Heart, Yellow Wallpaper, Oh God, Unlike Poe's, True Nervous-, Evil Eye, Tell-Tale Heart, Tale Hearts, Poe Gilman, Perkins Gilman, yellow wallpaper, objects stories, tell-tale heart, unreliable narrator, tell tale,
Approximate Word count = 840
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)