“The Yellow WallPaper” Style Analysis
1st period
In the excerpt from “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses diction and sentence structure to depict the narrator’s appearance of craziness. Gilman’s word choice shows the paranoia of the speaker. A quick count of the one syllable words shows that about 175 have only one syllable. There are only about 200 words in the entire excerpt. This means that about 75% are monosyllabic. These short, choppy words demonstrate bursts of thoughts that are sporadic. Since people who have psychotic tendencies tend to be all over the place, the short words are appropriate. This shows that diction gives the impression that the narrator is crazy. In addition, sentence structure, which is also short & to the point, shows a lack of flow. For example, one of the sentences in the middle of the passages states: “It is not bad—at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met.” This relatively short sentence is broken into five obviously choppy parts, contributing to the feeling of insanity given to the reader. Clearly, diction and sentence structure gives the impression that the narrator is nuts.