The Yellow Wallpaper Figurative Language Analysis

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In the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman writes about her confusing, yet interesting life in isolation, and how she digresses throughout the three months. The narrator is astonished to the fullest extent by many eye-catching objects and hidden details found within the room. Her thoughts about the room are very contradictory and she is thoroughly indecisive in her feelings for this room. Throughout the story, the narrator mentally deteriorates as shown through her tendency to shift from hating the room to obsessing over the room; the author uses strong figurative language and contradictory connotations to reveal the narrator’s thoughts and emotions to the reader. As the story begins, the narrator expresses her feelings for her environment in a very disturbed tone. The narrator explains her feelings through the use of negatively connoted words such as “irritating” and “revolting” to describe her disgust for her surroundings. These two negatively connoted words tell us that the narrator is truly bothered and …show more content…

The narrator begins to analyze every aspect of the room and is thoroughly intrigued by all it has to offer. To show her obsession, she use hyperbole to suggest that she has “spent hours in trying to analyze” the strange odor in the room, which is peculiar activity for any human being. In her eyes, objects in the room begin to be perceived with the qualities of real people. Gilman personifies the pattern on the wall as having a “broken neck and two bulbous eyes,” which fascinates our narrator’s imagination immensely. The human-like qualities of the wallpaper create a bond between our narrator and the room, adding to her obsession. Again, Gilman personifies the wallpaper as she shows these “absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere,” which enacts a strong sense of security and uneasiness in our

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