Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper

The “Yellow Paper” of Line 3 is the key symbol at the heart of the poem, but as a complex symbol it has several different facets. On one hand, in its great stack, assembled through the hard and ultimately painful labor of the worker, it symbolizes the oppressive nature of the work and its product. In its insistence on perfection and ability to inflict subtle wounds, the paper takes on a menacing, threating quality. On a purely physical level, this comes from its dimensions: the thinner the edge, the sharper it is, and the more like the blade of a knife. Thus the paper represents the threat posed by mass-production driven by profit motives: given that it will ultimately be sold to consumers in pads advertising the number of sheets they contain, the paper represents the endlessly calculating, dehumanizing nature of capitalism.

Yet, on another level, yellow paper has a particular association with legal and office work. It was invented in the 1880s by Thomas Holley, a mill worker who used the scraps to assemble margin-lined notepads which found popularity among the legal profession. The color yellow has its own association with cowardice, and this might hint at a negative portrayal of the office worker who sits comfortably behind a desk while the workers and others suffer.