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Figurative Language In The Yellow Wallpaper

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In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the emotional state of the narrator and feelings toward her husband are reflected in her description of the setting through the use of first person narration, imagery to portray feelings of oppression and figurative language to create a consistent tone of isolation and cynical irony.

The narrator uses symbolism to portray her connection with her observations and the yellow wallpaper. From the moment they moved into their house, the narrator felt like her husband treated her like a child which was shown when he forces her stay in a nursery. John forces the narrator to repress her imagination. While her "habit of story-making" might have found a healthy outlet in writing, …show more content…

This allows the reader to gain a better understanding of how the narrator felt while going mad. This creates a sense of empathy. “I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store.” In addition, as the narrator identifies with the woman in the wallpaper, she creates a sense of unity, metaphorically advocating for the feminist movement. The author’s use of a paradox creates as sense of irony as the narrator moves farther from reality, she gains more clarity about her inner-self. "I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!"

The emotional state of the narrator and feelings toward her husband are reflected with the narrator’s use of symbolism to portray her connection with her observations and the yellow wallpaper, imagery to portray feelings of oppression, and the use of first-person narrative to emphasize tone in the passage. The overall obsession with analyzing the wallpaper reveals a sense of desire for higher intellectual understanding. Despite her mental state and her confinement, as the narrator moves farther from reality, she gains more clarity about her

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