“Black Swan” - “Yellow Wallpaper”

Why can one only lose their self entirely or free oneself by creating an alternate reality in their own mind? If we compare the “Black Swan to the “Yellow Wallpaper,” maybe then we can begin to answer this question.

“In the film 'Black Swan', Nina, always a white swan, begins to explore her Shadow (her black swan) for her lead role in 'Swan Lake'. I'm struck by the factors and presences pushing and pulling Nina into and out of her Shadow: namely, her creepy, infantilizing mother and her abusive, seducing director.” (Tally) Nina doesn't get to explore her notorious dark side in any remotely safe or healthy ways. Her mother has trapped her inside a pink, endless childhood--her bedroom full of stuffed animals, her mother physically dressing and undressing her, with Nina calling her 'mommy' in a needy, babyish voice which is the only thing, it seems, that will talk her mother back from the extreme edge of her bouts of rage.” (Tally) “Nor can Nina explore her
Shadow in the world of the ballet--dominated by the forceful and dangerous director and a cut-throat group of ballerinas, many of whom seem to share Nina's eating disorder and her willingness to do anything to be on top in the company.” (Tally) “So from the beginning, is there any chance for Nina? At the end of the ballet, the swan queen can only find freedom in death: a fate that Nina shares.” (Tally) When Nina crosses over to the dark side and becomes the black swan, literally and metaphorically, she falls to her death. Is this a kind of escape similar to the kind of escape for the character in “The Yellow
Wallpaper?”

In “The Yellow Wallpaper” which was written in 1899 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, immediately upon moving into the new house, the woman character felt uneasy about it, “still I
will