Obsession: Good or Bad?
Obsession can be either good or bad. It can cause people to behave a certain way that others may see as crazy and it can cause people to be so determined to achieve their goals that others will be so proud. In examining the stories, "The yellow Wall Paper", "The Cask of Amontillado", and the film, Field of Dreams, it is easy to see both the good and the bad that comes with obsession.
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story, "The Yellow Wallpaper", obsession is defined as a nightmare. The lady in this story is going crazy as she is forced to stay a room with a retched color of wallpaper. She describes the paper in her story, "The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it. It is stripped off---the paper---in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I have never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling, flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin." (Gilman 260) This quote shows how much depth she was taking into the paper. It shows where her obsession for this paper begins to take place and how much she is concentrating distinctively on this yellow wall paper that she is literally forced to stare at. In this story, it is easy to see that the obsession that takes place is not good. It almost seems to be driving this woman mad. She becomes frantic and crazy as she describes the paper at night, "At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern, I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be." (Gilman 265) The obsession of this paper is clearly taking over her life. It is all that she can think about and dream about. She began to feel that she was in the prison of this wall paper. The obsession with the wall paper was so great that it drove her to rip the paper right off of the wall....