The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper was an excellent example of luring a reader in through the usage of exotic and as well strange details. Gilman took the details of the yellow wallpaper and attracted her audience. Once you were reeled in a deeper meaning was exposed through her details. That is why her story was a great success. Her exploiting the device of figurative language.

The device of figurative language can be used to portray all aspects of writing. In this particular quote she uses it to intensify a habit of hers. "I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store" (Gilman pg.5 Lines 7-9). When i read this line it really caught my eye. Children tend to be very fond of toys. If you were to take your child to a toy store most of them go crazy with thousands of toys to try out and hopefully take home a few home. So Gilman states that as a child she could find black walls and ordinary furniture amazing. This not only ensures the fact that she is in love with blank walls and plain furniture but she is also unordinary. She sees things beyond a blank wall that the supposed human eye cannot see. As in the story a woman was found inside this yellow wallpaper who came out and gave her company. This being from the fact that she was always home alone. Her husband was always off doing work and never had time to be with her.

Another part of her figurative language is her ability to take details and expand them to something so creative and well explained that no necessary reasoning be given. You are already painted with a picture that is as clear as water. "It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide--plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions"(Gilman pg. 3 Lines 4-6). What more can you really ask for? These designs in the wall are much more than just writings that meet at one point and start branching off in every direction. These so called curves express her feelings. she has no life. When she writes she feels good. she lets go of her stress, anger, and forgets about the world. When she is not then her feelings take a downward plunge. She begins to go crazy and that is when the curve took a stop and committed suicide. No longer does she know what to do, This is when she relies on the yellow wallpaper for support. What she needed was there the whole time but never wanted to open up to it.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a wonderful writer as stated before. Her life contributes to her writing which makes for good stories. But then she takes it another level with her effect from figurative language. I look forward to more stories like this in the future.