In “Porphyria’s Lover”, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and The Metamorphosis, the symbols of Porphyria’s hair, the wallpaper, and Gregor’s desk illustrate how everyday, harmless items can be used to hurt the characters. In “Porphyria’s Lover”, Browning uses Porphyria’s hair to symbolize how everyday items can cause harm, even when they are thought to be harmless. In the text, the narrator is trying to grapple with the idea that Porphyria wants to be his forever. He is trying to decide what he wants to do and comes to the conclusion, “In one long yellow string I wound / Three times her little throat around, / And strangled her” (Browning 2). This demonstrates how an everyday item can be used as a way to harm someone, because Porphyria’s hair would never have been thought of as a weapon that could be used to kill her. …show more content…
The narrator uses her hair as a method to kill her, which surprises the reader because it was a very unexpected way for him to do so. By choosing to use her hair as a weapon, Browning creates a symbol out of the hair instead of having it be something the reader doesn’t focus on. When Porphyria’s hair is used to kill her, it shows how an everyday, harmless item can bring harm to a person. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Perkins Gilman uses the wallpaper in Jane’s room to symbolize her declining mental health. Throughout the whole story, Jane has been trying to figure out the pattern in the wallpaper that has consumed her every thought. She has spent days trying to find the pattern and even says, “You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well under way in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream” (Perkins Gilman