The Literary Devices In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

The Literary Devices in “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Throughout life, there are many people who go through depression, which can change a person’s whole life. In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, focused on the main character Jane, also the narrator deals with depression. Due to her depression, she is isolated in a room with “yellow wallpaper” so she can recuperate. There are many literary devices used in the story to explain what the narrator is going through. The literary devices that are used are setting, theme, antagonist, repetition, antithesis, symbolism, metaphors, cacophony, and personification.
The setting of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a fancy house that has locks all around it, with separate little houses. The house is very isolated- it is far back from the road and away from the community. The narrator is placed inside the house in a big room inside the house that has been decorated with yellow wallpaper which covers the room. The wallpaper represents the structure of the family and medicine. The windows in the room seem to have bars going across and make the room feel like a jail-based environment for the narrator. The wallpaper in the rooms gives different types of visuals and vibes towards …show more content…
Here, the author uses an antithesis in order to better describe the misshapen and chaotic nature of the wallpaper, as the narrator sees it. The narrator describes the lines as "dull" yet immediately goes on to say that, they "plunge off at outrageous angles" and "destroy themselves". The juxtaposed descriptions of the wallpaper paired with the macabre adjectives the narrator uses all help the reader develop an understanding of the narrator's