“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” the symbols and figurative language leave a lasting image on what the story has to offer. Symbolism and figurative language convey abstract meaning, by creating imaginative connections between our ideas and our senses. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” the symbolism is not the yellow wallpaper itself, but nearly the sub pattern behind it.
The symbol of “The Yellow Wallpaper” manufactures qualities in order to help create connections between the reader and the story. Many of its qualities are symbolic in a way that only the woman can relate to because of the situation she is in. One of the room’s features with symbolic value are the bars on the windows. They portray the woman’s entrapment, because of her husband’s limitations on her freedom.
The wallpaper in the room has a
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Actions can also show symbolism. The end of the story is a good example of this, when she is ripping the wallpaper off of the walls trying to find the imaginary woman. When her husband walks in and sees his wife, he faints. Just like what was described of the woman in the wallpaper. “Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time” (Gilman 320). This is an event in the story that basically confirms the symbolism expressed leading up to it. The wallpaper was one of the sole factors in her imprisonment, and getting rid of it freed the woman she believed was inside, which was actually herself.
In conclusion, being able to recognize the symbolism in the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is key to understand what is going on throughout the rest of the plot. Without seeing the meaning behind the wallpaper, it is hard to make sense of the rest of the story. Symbolism plays a critical role in this story, as well as it does in many other