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How Are Literary Devices Used In The Yellow Wallpaper

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Short Story Fiction & Literary Devices Short story fiction is an inventive narrative enhancing the literary devices such as symbols, theme, and dynamic character to create a dynamic story with only a few pages to read through. Short stories can vary in sizes but still they keep a revolving theme to each story making a dynamic tale. In every novel, or short story there is always literary devices at enhancing the story for the reader. Literary devices give a deeper understanding of the words in the narrative, which allows the reader to go head first within the novel absorbing all the words and contextual meanings. Symbolism is a literary device that allows the reader to find contextual clues at unmasking the authors meaning behind developments in the novel, to specific …show more content…

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a first person narrative written in the main characters secret journal, the main character is married to John who has it be, is also her physician; he treats her for depression also ensuring her that writing is bad for her then whisks her away from their home for treatment. “I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a great deal – having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition” (Gilman 527). John refuses to let her write the only thing that makes her sane, which ultimately makes her increasingly insane and begins the fixation with the yellow wallpaper in her room. At first she just does not like the wallpaper, then it starts to terrify her to where she is seeing people move behind the paper. “The front pattern does move – and no wonder! The woman behind it shakes it! (Gilman 534). “The Yellow Wallpaper” enlists the theme of expression and freedom, if the main character had been able to write, as her husband should have, instead of calling her crazy and keeping her like a caged animal, maybe she would have remained

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There are many events that can foreshadow the rest of one’s life for the better, or, for the worst. In Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Jane (the narrator) struggles with a mental illness that causes her to become very weak so her husband, John, takes her to a country home to heal. While at the house she stays in a room that has old yellow wallpaper. Jane is deeply disturbed yet highly intrigued and maintains her deep inspections of the wallpaper as she stays there.

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720 Words | 3 Pages

The beauty of literature in emphasized by the contribution of figurative language. Figurative language is compiled of rhetorical and poetic devices. These devices build meaning and paint a picture for a reader to find. Poetic and rhetorical devices create depth and purpose to a story by using imagery to paint a picture in a reader's mind, allusion also gives a sense of depth by ties characters and ideas from other pieces of literature into a totally different story. Symbolism gives objects a different sense of meaning and creates a different way to look at it.

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Symbolism allows the author to create a story that would otherwise be bland and monotone. Without this dark romantic element, books, short stories, and poems would not have as much meaning nor appealing detail. Symbolism in "The Raven," "The Devil and Tom Walker," and "The Minister's Black Veil," creates layers of meaning and interesting characters. Symbolism has been used for centuries to spice up the literary world. Sometimes it is used in obvious ways, but other time it has to be thoroughly studied to be imperturbably understood.

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248 Words | 1 Pages

The story” The Yellow Wallpaper” wrote in first -person perspective. The main character is “ I” in the story. This narrator is a crazy, sick, nervous woman, who is asked to live in someplace peaceful by his husband John. The narrator’s husband John is a physician. John never believes that his wife is sick instead of thinking she just need a rest.

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Passage Analysis #1 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman, in this particular passage of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” explores the theme of female oppression through imagery and symbolism of the wall-paper. These elements of literature make the wall-paper come to life for both the narrator and the audience. “The front pattern does move”(55) personifies the wall-paper to be so animate and physically restraining that the woman behind it must shake it to attempt to escape. The italicization of “does” serves to further affirm that the wallpaper exhibits restrictive human-like behaviors - particularly those of dominant men in society. The narrator states that there are “a great many woman behind”(55), extending the metaphor to all Victorian women in the United States and others around the world who are oppressed.

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730 Words | 3 Pages

Symbolism is the idea that something is being represented as an abstract idea beyond its literal meaning. An example of symbolism from the novel is the color red. The color red appears frequently throughout the novel, such as, “All of them stood in silence for a moment and looked at HELP ELEANOR COME HOME ELEANOR written in shaky red letters on the wallpaper over Theodora’s bed” (Jackson 114). There was also the red sweater, red sandals, and red nail polish painted onto Eleanor’s toes. The symbolic significance of the color red is that it represents blood and violence.

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1122 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the generation, women have always been trapped in some way or another. In the short story, ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’ and the novel ‘The Awakening’ highlights the struggle of women in the late 1800’s and the early 1900s in society. The Yellow wallpaper is a short story about women giving birth and being imprisoned in a room with a weird view of the yellow wall-paper. This resulted in her hallucination lead to the development of mental illness. By the end of the story, she rips off the yellow wallpaper and kills her husband.

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In the journal “On Not Reading between the Lines: Models of Reading in the Yellow Wallpaper”, Jeannette King and Pam Morris state that Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, can be classified as both feminist literature and gothic literature because it is equally a story of haunting and repression. King and Morris state that “The Yellow Wallpaper” involves elements of traditional gothic writing. This is seen through the story’s exploration of an abnormal psychological state (24). This quality is seen when the narrator explains that she “can see a strange, provoking, figure, that seems to skulk about behind the silly and conspicuous front design. (571)”.

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Charlotte Gilman’s short story, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, (1899) is a text that describes how suppression of women and their confinement in domestic sphere leads to descend into insanity for escape. The story is written as diary entries of the protagonist, who is living with her husband in an old mansion for the summer. The protagonist, who remains unnamed, is suffering from post-partum depression after the birth of her child and is on ‘rest’ cure by her physician husband. In this paper, I will try to prove that ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ acts as a subversive text by portraying the protagonist’s “descent into madness” as a result of the suppression that women faced in Victorian period.

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498 Words | 2 Pages

The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is about a wife who is confined to a room due to a condition such as depression or anxiety. The woman does all she can, to get rid of her sickness, still she still is not allowed to work. She speaks about how she controls her temper towards her husband John with pills, despite they make her tired she tries to find new excitements. The pills she takes for her to control emotions tire her greatly. She then walks into the old house writing about the horrid color on the wall, But then when John visits her in her room, she must not write about it, she hides her book she was writing on.

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301 Words | 2 Pages

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ironic short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, describes how a depressed woman, who lives in an aristocratic society, is indirectly effected by a wallpaper that reflects her lifestyle. The point of view of the short story is first person. This is essential to know because readers are able to read the narrators thoughts and why the character take necessary actions toward certain situations. In the beginning of the story, the woman describes her condition.

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645 Words | 3 Pages

Some authors might struggle with certain subjects because it could mean something different to them hence the two author’s stories being able to turn out drastically different. Symbolism. Symbolism is a literary device that is the use of symbols to signify something larger. A symbol in a story could range from a gold coin to a block

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1202 Words | 5 Pages

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story told through diary entries of a woman who suffers from postpartum depression. The narrator, whose name is never mentioned, becomes obsessed with the ugly yellow wallpaper in the summer home her husband rented for them. While at the home the Narrator studies the wallpaper and starts to believe there is a woman in the wallpaper. Her obsession with the wallpaper slowly makes her mental state deteriorate. Throughout The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses many literary devices such as symbolism, personification and imagery to help convey her message and get it across to the reader.

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1197 Words | 5 Pages

Symbolism can use an object (like a tree of birds), or art, (like Melinda’s art project or Mr. Freeman's canvas) to represent an abstract idea. Laurie Halse Anderson uses symbolism to hint at a certain mood or emotion, rather than just blatantly saying it. So, the use of symbolism is important because it helps create meaning and emotion in a story. Symbolism makes a book fun to read, the symbolism produces a thought provoking work of art and it, (like in this book), adds meaning to seemingly unrelated objects and elicits emotions in the

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550 Words | 3 Pages

“The Story Of An Hour” uses Literary Devices. Literary Devices are specific language techniques which writers use to create text that is dear, interesting, and memorably. The literary devices in “The Story Of An Hour” are Irony, Symbolism, Imagery, and Allegory. Irony means the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically, for humorous or emphatic effect. Symbolism is the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities.

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