Dramatic Irony In The Yellow Wallpaper

In the stories of “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and “Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilmore, a lot of dramatic irony is used. This is illustrated in both stories because both of the women in each story really didn’t have a clue of what was really going on. For the reader in both of the stories, one can clearly understand through works of the author that the reader knows more than the characters. This will keep the reader in tune because he, or she will want to see how the characters find out what the reader already knows. In “Yellow Wallpaper” dramatic irony is used by more than one of the characters in the story. One example is when the husband John, is very unaware of his wife’s hidden diary (Gilmore 92). This is brought into the story because the author wants to give the reader

So that the reader can feel like they belong in the story and feel connected to the situation. Moving forward in the story the author also gives us another piece of information that John is not aware of. “I can see her on the walls, the woman above the pattern on the yellow wallpaper” (Gilmore 113). This was written in his wife’s un known diary, she is seeing a woman on her yellow wallpaper in their rented summer home. This dramatic irony pulls the reader even farther into the story. Now knowing there is a threat in the house and only one person can see it. This infers to the reader that something will happen to the protagonist without her husband knowing. The girl continues to write her progress of deciphering the wall in her unknown diary “Every day when I get the chance to escape John, I take it. I keep track of my findings on the wall in my diary” (Gilmore 119). This infers to the reader that she has a hidden obsession with the wall that her