Who Actually Holds "The Gaze"?

I found this unit of “Seeing and The Gaze” to be extremely interesting.  "The gaze" is extremely powerful.  I feel that “the gaze” can be found in many different stories, even when you do not realize it.  “The Gaze” is something that I feel everyone has experienced once in their lives.  Just like in the short story, "Miss Brill", everyone has been looked at before, positively or negatively, and felt a gaze on them.  What I find most interesting is who seems to hold the gaze most of the time. 

When talking about “the gaze”, it is usually inferred that it is a man looking at a woman.  The male is the usual person to hold the gaze on a female.  In the story, "Miss Brill", she is a woman who holds the power to see.  Not only does she hold the power to see men, but also other females.  I thought this literal gaze in the story that she had upon other people was a good way to show a female having the power instead of a male. 

"Miss Brill" is told in a very interesting way.  I felt that it allows the reader to hold “the gaze” on Miss Brill herself.  While reading this story, I felt that I was in a sense watching Miss Brill watch all of these other people in the park.

"She glanced, sideways, at the old couple.  Perhaps they would go soon.  Last Sunday, too, hadn't been as interesting as usual.  An Englishman and his wife, he wearing a dreadful Panama hat and she button boots.  And she'd gone on the whole time about how she ought to wear spectacles; she knew she needed them; but that it was no good getting any; they'd be sure to break and they'd never keep on."

The above passage shows how the reader is about to "see" and "watch" Miss Brill examine the old couple next to her.

Having the gaze of the people in the park be from Miss Brill's eyes and opinions only, makes it hard to realize how much of it is reality and how much is altered/filtered by her own desire of what is happening around her.  If the story was told from a different point of view or from a different person do you think the effect of the story would be different?   

                   

Unreliability

       An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility has been seriously compromised.  In both The Yellow Wallpaper and The Ones Who Walk Away From The Omelas, an unreliable narrator is seen.  Having this kind of a narrator forces the reader to draw conclusions about the story on their own, without actually flat out telling them the story details.  

In The Yellow Wallpaper, the story is told in third person.  This is helpful in this story because if we did not have access to the woman’s thoughts, the story would not have included the wallpaper and what she thought was behind it.  Reality vs. narrator’s perception was a major factor in the unreliable narrator of this story.  At sometimes it was hard to tell which characters were actually real.  The narrator changes her mind about many different things in the story, which is hard to trust and to follow, making her unreliable.  You can see this with John’s character.  Somedays John is talking about how the woman is progressing and improving, and then next day he is saying that he may have to send her away and that she may not recover.  Her opinions on many things change rapidly, back and forth.  She likes one thing, then hates it and later likes it again.  This rapid change can be seen with these quotes about John...“It is hard to talk with john about my case, because he is so wise and because he loves me so.” “The fact is, I am getting a little afraid of John.” “I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes.”  I think that it can be concluded that the narrators mental health can be the reason for her unreliability.  As a reader it is hard to understand if the woman in the wallpaper is real because she does have a mental heath issue that can make her visions unclear.  Overall, the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper is deemed unreliable.   

The narrator of The One’s Who Walk Away From The Omelas is also unreliable.  This story is told in second person.  This is unlike many stories because most are told in first and third.  Second person allows for more control over the reader’s perceptions.  The narrator of this story has an extremely hard time to narrate.  She never knows how to fully explain why the town is so perfect, before the child in the basement is exposed.  The narrator talks about the town as if she herself is uncertain of why everything is so perfect and always happy.  She says at one point, “but I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you. Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time.”  This quote shows how the narrator of the story is trying extremely hard to describe what is going on in the town, but simply can not put it into words.  The only thing that the narrator is certain about and talks about, is the child that is locked away in the basement and that is where the sole happiness and perfection of the town comes from. 

What do you think?