The yellow wallpaper literary devices

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story that was written in the 19th century by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The author’s work was published in New England Magazine in 1892 and brought an out roar from the public. This was because most of the people who read the story saw it to be a work of fiction and the story was classified as gothic genre till the late 1960s.

The story talks about the narrator and her husband John. The narrator falls sick and John her husband being a doctor advises that she should have bed rest as treatment. The couple has gone for summer vacation and they are renting out a big house for their summer. John dictates that he and his wife (the narrator) should have a separate room in the top floor of the house. John always wins his arguments since ‘he is the doctor’. The narrator even nicknames him Mr. "Trust Me, I’m a Doctor” (Mukhtar 33). The narrator does not want the big room but wants a smaller room that is much prettier but her husband is against it. He forbids her from doing everything she loved like writing and just rest. The room they move to in the old ancestral house spooks the narrator. The wallpaper in the room is also spooky. John controls all her activities. She decides to sneak out when the husband is not around and do some writing but always has to hide the paper she is writing on when the husband comes. Time passes and the narrator becomes fond of the room but the wallpaper still spooks her. She claims in her story that the wallpaper seems to have eyes that are always blinking at her. Comment by Magdalen McKinley: Well, she does not really nickname him that—that is essentially what he says. Is this a quote from the research source? It’s not quite clear since there are not quotation marks around anything.

Every member of the family too supports John that she should have bed rest. The narrator continues to observe the wallpaper and in the moonlight she could see the figure of a woman trapped in it trying to free herself. She tells her husband they need to move but he refuses ("Non-Feminist Reading of "The Yellow Wallpaper" 29). As she continues to study the wallpaper she realizes it has a smell and describes it as a ‘yellow smell’. She starts ripping the wallpaper off and when her husband enters and finds her creeping and declaring she is now free, he faints. Comment by Magdalen McKinley: What information is from this source? So far, it seems as though you’ve just summarized the story—if you are quoting from a research source, you’d want to quote that critic’s argument.

Some of the literary and linguistic devices used in this masterpiece include; Anaphora- This involves the repetition of words that begin a sentence of phrases of successive clauses. It produces an emotional effect that shows the reader the emotional state the writer was in. Example is that the narrator uses I don’t know a lot in the story “…I don't know why I should write this. I don't want to. I don't feel able…” Comment by Magdalen McKinley: It’s not really enough to simply point out the different literary devices and themes present in the story. The goal of the assignment is to trace one main theme that runs throughout the story and highlight how specific literary devices reveal that theme.

Parenthesis is also used in the story- it is word schemes that deviate from the original structure of the sentence. In the story we see interjection of the author’s voice and we are given a glimpse at her thought and mental state (Hamilton 07). We see how suspicious she is about the house and how it thinks it will affect her stay when she says, “I am afraid, but I don't care—there is something strange about the house—I can feel it.”

Parallelism- it emphasizes of similarity in structure of a sentence and creates rhythm. The short story has many instances of this like when the author describes the state of entanglement by saying “It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you.”

Symbolism- the writer uses a lot of symbolism in the story. The ‘Yellow wallpaper’ symbolizes the writer’s state of mind (psychological state); barred windows symbolize entrapment of the female gender in a man’s world. The nursery in the upper room symbolizes how the society treats women as juveniles both in their tasks and duties.

There is use of irony- there is the use of dramatic irony, situational irony and verbal irony. A good example of verbal irony is when the narrator says "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage."

The themes highlighted in the story were, Freedom and Confinement- the writer is confined to a single room in the large ancestral house. From this room she learns to cope with isolation and drives the plot forward towards freedom at the end of it all. The theme is the most dominant in the story.

Madness- The story shows the reader gradually the descent of the writer into madness. We see how chaotic her mind starts to become that she even starts seeing the wallpaper in the room is alive and there is a woman trapped in it. We see the reader-losing grip of reality due to the isolation kind of treatment (Rich 37).

Society and class- the story describe the class in which the narrator and her husband are. They are wealth as they can even afford to take vacations during summer. The society is depicted in the story as being unjust to the female gender and limiting them to only certain roles while men would be out in the world living as they pleased as wives worked in household chores.

The author criticizes the American culture in that they look down upon the female gender and only men can do the important things in the society like becoming doctors and politicians etc. We see that the writer’s husband is a doctor and all his decisions have to be respected, as ‘he is the doctor’. The narrator, who is his wife, is confined to the home and the husband will not allow her even to do what she loves best i.e. writing showing the confinement of women in the American culture. The author is practically asking us to feel sympathy for the main character ad disdain for the character of her husband and Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell. This is because her character shows how the society treats women as not important in the society. Silas Mitchelnd character depict the way he looks down at women as good for nothing and can only fulfill duties as house wives doing house chores. Mitchell believes American women were not up to the task of performing their duties as mothers let alone competing with men ("How Turn of the Century Feminism Finds Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”" 34)

The story shows that the female gender should be treated better and be allowed to help in development of the society. The author warns that if women are held back from perusing their passion it will only end up making them go crazy other than making them better mothers or wives. The story speaks a lot to our society today and it has brought about revolution in feminism since its publication

Hi Nirali,

I’d like to give you the opportunity to rewrite this paper, as it does not quite meet the assignment goals and criteria. What you need to do is:

1) Craft a thesis statement to be placed at the end of your introduction, which clarifies what you are arguing about the story. You can choose one of the themes you list on page 3, if you’d like—in other words, you can make an argument about what you think Gilman is saying about class or gender or madness, but since you have only 4 pages to work with, you’d want to choose one theme and closely analyze it.

2) Choose the literary devices that help reveal the theme and message you’ve chosen. In each paragraph, provide an analysis of an example of one of those devices (symbolism, imagery, etc.) and explain how it helps you arrive at your interpretation

3) If you want to include outside sources in this paper (which is not required), you do need to clarify what you are drawing from those sources. Often, you cite a source after just offering a general statement or a piece of summary; you want to save quotes from outside sources for moments when you want to quote someone else’s argument or interpretation

Works Cited

Hamilton, Carole L. "The Collegial Classroom: Teaching Threshold Concepts through Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”." CEA Critic, vol. 77, no. 2, 2015, pp. 211-222.

"How Turn of the Century Feminism Finds Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”." Feminist Moments : Reading Feminist Texts,

Mukhtar, O. "The Yellow Wallpaper." BMJ, vol. 342, no. jan26 1, 2011, pp. d428-d428.

"A Non-Feminist Reading of "The Yellow Wallpaper."International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), vol. 4, no. 12, 2015, pp. 233-237.

Rich, Charlotte. ""The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Dual Text Critic