Hi guys, I'm looking for a short story that does a great job of showing a character slowly going mad or disintegrating in some way, preferably told through that person's point of view. I'm looking for a sense of escalating tension where the reader gets drawn in and perhaps disoriented or creeped out.
I'm familiar with Poe, The Yellow Wallpaper, Metamorphosis, A Rose for Emily, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?, The Swimmer, and Nabokov's Signs and Symbols… beyond those, I'm drawing a blank.
Help? Thank you!
by Enough_Blueberry_696
6 Comments
We Have Always Lived In The Castle
I haven’t finished this collection yet, but two from Ted Chiang’s *Stories of Your Life and Others* come to mind.
The first one that’s a little more spot-on what you’re looking for is called Division by Zero. Basically, a mathematician discovers a proof (though not a division of zero) that completely uproots everything about mathematics as we understand it.
The second one which is more of an abstract interpretation of your request is called Understand. The protagonist is given a type of hormone therapy that ends up significantly boosting his intelligence levels effectively beyond comprehension, and how he goes about dealing with that. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s about him going mad per se, but I think you’d appreciate it nonetheless.
The Yellow Wallpaper
Notes from Underground
Nikolai Gogol’s Diary of a Madman
Dostoevsky has a novella, The Double that is also good.
Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl (though it’s been around 25 years since I’ve read it)
Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson is a bit longer than “short” at 240 pages but does fit the bill for the prompt otherwise.