In the description of “this place”—Mrs. McPherson's ranch—Gilman uses visual imagery to portray a landscape that seems vast and isolated to the widow’s visiting son and daughters:
“This place” was a piece of rolling land within ten miles of Denver. It had a bit of river bottom, and ran up towards the foothills. From the house the view ran north and south along the precipitous ranks of the “Big Rockies” to westward. To the east lay the vast stretches of sloping plain.
The visual imagery Gilman employs here evokes a sense of emptiness and solitude through phrases like "vast stretches" and "rolling land.” This language emphasizes the ranch's remoteness and the expansive, sweeping ruggedness of Mrs. McPherson’s rural Colorado surroundings. The ranch’s proximity to the "Big Rockies" and the endless plains makes it seem physically and emotionally distant from the urban lives of James, Adelaide, and Ellen. This setting’s unforgiving harshness is a big part of the children's initial concerns about their mother's well-being. Regardless of the widow's actual feelings, the scale and solitude of “this place” might imply she would be vulnerable and alone there going forward. The fact that the ranch is actually "within ten miles of Denver," and therefore not as terribly remote as it appears, seems to escape the three siblings, especially when they consider how their mother will live out her widowhood.
Having made her position on where she intends to live clear, Mrs. McPherson's actions in opening her drawn window-shades and removing her mourning veil show her newfound independence:
With a firm swift step, the tall figure moved to the windows and pulled up the lowered shades. The brilliant Colorado sunshine poured into the room. She threw off the long black veil.
The visual imagery here contrasts darkness with light to illustrate the shocking change in Mrs. McPherson's life. The act of pulling up the shades allows the "brilliant Colorado sunshine" to flood the room. As she pulls up the shades, the widow dispels the shadows of her husband’s presence and infuses the space with brightness and warmth from the sun. This change in lighting visually shows the change in Mrs. McPherson now that she's able to leave the ranch. She goes from subjugation to joy and freedom, having left her husband's metaphorical shadow.
The description of the sunshine as "pouring" into the room has a sense of abundance and energy. It’s not just a trickle; it fills the space rapidly. Things are very different in the room after Mrs. McPherson raises the shades, just as things are different in her life after her husband dies. When she then "[throws] off the long black veil," she rids herself of another physical manifestation of having to submit to her husband. The black veil, a traditional symbol of mourning and loneliness, gets tossed aside in favor of the golden sunlight outside the house.
