1. Word Choice (Diction):
- Early in the story, the narrator uses relatively ordinary language, free of extreme words or unusual imagery, reflecting her composed and rational state of mind.
- As the story progresses, the narrator's diction becomes increasingly figurative and symbolic. She starts using words that evoke a sense of unease, confinement, and mental disturbance, such as "creeping," "strangling," "loathsome," and "oppressive."
- The frequent repetition of certain words and phrases, such as "the yellow wallpaper" and "creepy, crawling feeling," creates a sense of fixation and obsession, underscoring the narrator's growing preoccupation with the wallpaper and her declining mental stability.
2. Figurative Language:
- Gilman employs metaphors and similes to personify the wallpaper, giving it a life of its own and suggesting its malevolent influence on the narrator's mind. For example, she describes the wallpaper pattern as "a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern."
- The wallpaper becomes a symbol of the oppressive forces that are driving the narrator mad, representing her confinement and the societal expectations placed on women.
3. Stream of Consciousness:
- As the narrator's mental state deteriorates, her thoughts become fragmented and disjointed, and her speech patterns mimic this breakdown. The narrative becomes more stream-of-consciousness, with abrupt shifts in thought, incomplete sentences, and disjointed observations, reflecting the narrator's loss of logical thinking.
4. Shifting Tone:
- At the beginning, the tone is relatively calm and objective, as the narrator describes her surroundings and expresses her thoughts on women's roles and confinement.
- However, as the story unravels, the tone shifts to one of growing anxiety, tension, and mounting hysteria. The use of exclamation marks and interrogative sentences conveys the narrator's agitation and desperation.
- The gradual shift from a rational tone to one of emotional intensity and desperation mirrors the narrator's descent into madness.
5. Loss of Coherence:
- In her madness, the narrator's perception of reality becomes distorted, evident in her inability to distinguish between the wallpaper and the people around her.
- The coherence and logic of her narrative diminish, replaced by fragmented thoughts, nonsensical ramblings, and a complete loss of grip on reality.
Overall, Gilman skillfully modulates the diction and tone of the narrative in “The Yellow Wallpaper” to effectively portray the protagonist's transition from seeming sanity to madness. The changes in language reflect her deteriorating mental state, the growing psychological distress, and her eventual disconnection from reality.