Foreshadowing In The Yellow Wallpaper

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The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, follows the mental episode of a female narrator. Throughout the story, we see the narrator progress towards her ultimate mental breakdown, which ends in dramatic irony. The author uses many different literary devices to convey the narrator’s breakdown and lead to the irony at the conclusion of the story. Two very important devices used are symbolism and foreshadowing. A big concept in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is that the woman the narrator thinks she sees in the wallpaper is actually her; it is a symbol that represents her. There are numerous similarities between the narrator and the woman described in the wallpaper that lead to the conclusion of the woman in the wallpaper being the …show more content…
Foreshadowing is evident when the narrator talks about a woman “stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern”(5) and “most women do not creep by daylight”(8). Later in the story, the narrator begins creeping and exclaims, “It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!”(9). Also, at the start of page nine, the narrator complains that “this bedstead is fairly gnawed!” but, we later find out the reason it is gnawed. “I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner[...]”(9), the narrator admits. Another example is near the end of the story when she is talking about all of the creeping women outside and asks herself, “I wonder if they all came out of that wall-paper as I did?”(9). The narrator is telling us that she is the woman in the wallpaper now. She tells us again at the ironic conclusion of the story when she exclaims to her husband, “‘I’ve got out at last’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!’”(9). We are now reassured that the narrator is the woman in the yellow wallpaper. This entire illusion was brought upon by her mental

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