In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses literary devices such as imagery and personification to create a feeling of fear within the reader. This can be seen in the way the narrator describes in detail the smell of the yellow wallpaper. Gilman uses personification when the narrator says the smell of the yellow wallpaper was “hovering in the dining room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall” (654). A smell is not something that one would usually refer to as hovering, skulking, or hiding, so it makes the reader wonder what is so peculiar about this smell. The way the narrator describes the smell creates this creepy and almost eerie feeling because it makes one wonder how this smell is possessing these humanlike qualities.