A Rose for Emily and The Yellow Wallpaper

He even becomes upset when she wishes to write, causing this story to be "composed" of writings she manages to do in secret.  John places her in the attic of the mansion, like a dirty secret, in what she believes to be a former nursery.  There is, however, strong evidence that the narrator is not the first mental patient to occupy the room - there are bars on the windows and gouges in the floor and walls; the bed is bolted down and has been gnawed on and the wallpaper has been torn off in patches.

Barbara Angelis stated “Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away” (Angelis, BrainyQuote). This statement reflects the theme of isolation and how one can truly understand themselves through self-reflection and time spent in loneliness. In the short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, both female protagonists, experience a time of seclusion leading to self- realization. Hence, both of these pieces of literature illustrate the troubles of women in a male-dominated society. As a result, both characters experience oppression by overbearing male influences and are physically and emotionally

Desperation for love arising from detachment can lead to extreme measures and destructive actions as exhibited by the tumultuous relationships of Miss Emily in William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” (rpt. in Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson, Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 9th ed. [Boston: Wadsworth, 2006] 556). Miss Emily is confined from society for the majority of her life by her father, so after he has died, she longs for relations that ironically her longing destroys. The despondency and obsession exuded throughout the story portray the predicament at hand.

The name Jane is spoken in the story and there is no mention of said name at all again. Jane could be the name of our narrator or could be a misprint from John’s sister, Jennie. “I’ve got out in spite of you and Jane” she says to John. This story would take a major, ominous turn if Jane was the name of our narrator. This would mean that she doesn’t think she is herself anymore, but the woman in the wallpaper. If it was supposed to be “Jennie” then it could represent the escape from the oppression of men and the women who accept it. Either way, Jane remains a mystery.

In the story, “A Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator tells her story of her life living with her husband and she comes off as a distressed, morose wife. In “A Rose for Emily” Emily is struggling with keeping a tradition in her family and is also and also distressed. Both women deal with the struggles of their husbands who do not give them attention or treat them well. They both show similarities in their qualities of life. In William Faulkner's, “A Rose for Emily” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” both have female characters who have to endure and overcome struggles of loneliness, isolation, insanity, and depression as the female protagonist.

Treichler’s “Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’” informs readers “The narrator is forbidden to engage in normal social conversation […] and avoid expressing negative thoughts and expressions about her illness” (61). Although both women were isolated, Emily isolated herself while the unnamed narrator was forcefully isolated.

William Faulkner’s, “A Rose for Emily,” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” are two short stories that incorporate multiple similarities and differences. Both stories main characters are females who are isolated from the world by male figures and are eventually driven to insanity. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the unidentified narrator moves to a secluded area with her husband and sister-in-law in hopes to overcome her illness. In “A Rose for Emily,” Emily’s father keeps Emily sheltered from the world and when he dies, she is left with nothing. Both stories have many similarities and differences pertaining to the setting, characterization, symbolism.

In “A Rose for Emily” and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Faulkner and Gilman employ point of view to question gender roles and mental health. Faulkner uses a third-person point of view in order to narrate the story from the perspective of the town. The perspective of an outsider looking in on Emily’s life highlights her lack of control as a woman and later, a lack of control she has over herself. The distant narrator creates a barrier to fully understanding Emily’s character and reflects how the town does not truly know her and her secrets. In contrast, Gilman uses a first-person point of view to narrate from the protagonist’s perspective. The utilization of an unreliable narrator allows for more understanding of the protagonist’s character, but less understanding of her situation as a whole. Moreover, the protagonist only writes when her husband John is not around which provides further insight into her deteriorating mental condition and the lack of control she has as a woman. Faulkner and Gilman use different narrative perspectives to achieve similar results. Each point of view hides or highlights the female character in order to reveal the struggles and insufficient help they receiving. These stories provide commentary on common issues for women and mental illness for their time period.

Her husband John, a physician, has placed her in the highest room in the house to give her “all the air (she) could get”. Despite the multiple requests to switch to a different room, Jane is made to stay in a place that makes her extremely uncomfortable, showing she doesn’t even have control of where she spends her time. Though John is very “careful and loving” he still oppresses Jane and makes himself the authority on the subject of her own mental state. As a result of being treated as if she is extremely fragile, Jane represses all thoughts and actions that aren’t in accordance with the way she is “supposed” to act. With the lack of control

Placed in a room of yellow wallpaper the protagonist, Jane, fights the battle of nonfiction versus fiction; Symbolic Order versus Imaginary Order. John, representing social order by only following practical ideas, is in an uneasy relationship with Jane which shows the weak bond between her and reality. Given her isolation, the words that she writes at first constitutes her thoughts, then as her mental state diminishes, her subconscious starts to make up her journal, giving importance to Suess’ ideas that language is the key symbol of women’s inner experience of postpartum depression. Psychotic symptoms of paranoia and hallucinations appear to have formed, and were controlled, before the

Undoubtedly, a shift in point of view to the perspective of one character in A Rose for Emily would cause multiple changes in the information given about Emily, the description of her, and also the narrator’s opinion of her, all of which may paint a different overall picture of Emily Grierson for the reader. Interestingly, a lot of information about Emily’s life is conjectured by the townspeople, and ultimately seems to be correct information. However, had the story been written by one character involved in her life rather than the collective narration of the townspeople, it is possible that more information about her life could be disclosed. For example, had the Baptist minister

Throughout the story, “A Rose for Emily” the narrator tells the story from an unnamed narrator's perspective while sharing the town's feelings. This makes the reader feel immersed in the town they are reading about

The narrator serves a variety of purpose in “A Rose for Emily”. As previously stated, the narrator forces the reader down the alternate route and, by disrupting the timeline, creates

The story begins with the writer describing Miss Emily’s house, which was once nice and luxurious but has become hideous looking. Her house was once apart of the most select in the city, it was now covered with mold. “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street.” (Lines 6-9) With the rebuilding of the Old South her house is left alone instead of making any improvements towards it, therefore emphasizing the habits Miss Emily is refusing to let go of.

She reports that the floor is “scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed which all we found in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars.” (Gilman 529). Without noticing, the woman has described herself in some ways. The room is representing the deterioration of her mental state. In the beginning of the story she talks about how beautiful and fancy the mansion looks on the outside, but this is somewhat deceiving because it is not the same on the inside. Similar in Jane's life. She appears fine in her outward appearance but her mind is slowly decaying the longer she stays. Her bed is nailed to the ground, just as she is stuck in place as well, not making any progress. Throughout the two weeks, it is almost as she has been sentenced to prison. Not only in the sense that she feels trapped, but also in the physical appearance of the room. Jail like bars on the window make her feel as if she is in a real jail cell or an insane asylum, symbolizing her