Given the eponymous brevity of short stories, authors have very limited space in which to draw the reader into the world that they have created as to impart the desired effect or feeling in them. In this respect, the careful use of detail and the emphasis on a single character are very important to any short story. Each word describing something outside of, or tangential to, the main point of the story and its protagonist therefor detracts from the final effect that the story has on the reader.
The proper use of detail in a short story, from intricate descriptions of settings to the choice of individual words, allows for the atmosphere, setting and mood of the story to be effectively established, and serves to draw the reader into the world of the story, making them a silent, incorporeal character in the narrative. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman uses detail in a highly effect manner, telling the reader only what they absolutely need to know, leaving the rest unspoken. The period of the story is set by the relationships between the characters, the dominant husband and the submissive wife, as well as by the use of period language, such as the mention of “a slight hysterical tendency”. Through her gradual shift from including details of the normal elements of the narrator’s life, such as her surroundings and the activities of her husband and others, to speaking only of the wallpaper and the woman trapped inside Gilman allows the reader to join the narrator on her journey into insanity. The story’s abrupt ending at the climax of the journey serves to draw the reader in further, inviting her to fill in the details as to how the narrator’s story concludes.
The focus on a single character also serves to engage the reader in the narrative, quickly establishing a vantage point from which to view and experience the story. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the reader experiences