Metaphors In The Yellow Wallpaper

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Wallpaper With a Thousand Words “The Yellow Wallpaper” is an important story, but digging has to be done to see so. The author Charlotte Perkins displays a feminist interpretation in an impressive way. Her use of metaphors brings out the true meaning behind this story. The wallpaper represents the way women are treated in our society, and the author tells a story of a “madwoman” to represent this overall theme. The house is the whole backbone to the story and is a one of the metaphors used. The house is where the yellow wallpaper is located, where the feelings of being trapped come alive. The woman in the story spends a great deal of time in the opening describing the house. “A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say …show more content…
She starts to go delusional because of this and because of her being locked away in a room due to her husband’s orders. “The front pattern does move- and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!” (Perkins, page 8). She begins picturing a woman trapped behind the wallpaper and watches her every move. This metaphor is interesting because she is seeing someone else suffer from the same thing she is. She sees a woman trying to escape from the gender roles in society and try and be free to do her own thing, much like the narrator herself. The narrator lives her life through the woman in the wallpaper; because she pictures her going outside in the daylight and pictures her doing things that she would never be allowed to do herself. In the end of the story the woman tears the wallpaper off of the wall. Halfway through her doing this, her husband walks in. He begs her to stop, and finally for the first time she does what she wants, she keeps going and does not listen to his orders. The wallpaper is ripped and represents her freedom. She chooses to no longer live the way society or a man wants her to, but she chooses to live life for herself. Society was much different in the 19th century than it is today. Women were not allowed to do many things, and when they married their husband owned them. This story really explains the pain women feel because of these horrible rules, and the author conveys this feeling through her use of metaphors. The wallpaper itself represents the mental screen men attempted to force upon women and through the narrator it is easy to see that she’s going insane over this trapped feeling. This story is meant to get the word out about gender roles and how they really make women

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