Comparison between The Yellow Wallpaper and A Rose for Emily

Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and Walker’s “Everyday Use” depict a theme of confinement with respect to the representation of women. However, even with the confinement theme at play, the two stories exhibit them completely differently. “A Rose for Emily” uses physical isolation to portray Emily’s resistance to the new modern changes of the world. Meanwhile, “Everyday Use” uses the theme confinement as a way to showcase social isolation of the characters Mama and Maggie and their detachment from the modern world. Both stories deal with characters hesitancy to embrace the changes of the new world and rely heavily on the traditional values set by the familiar time period known to them.

In “A Rose for Emily," by William Faulkner, the main character Emily Grierson is stuck living in the past within the isolated reality that she’s been forced into and that she herself created. Throughout the story, a major theme, (meaning what the story is about) is Emily’s resistance to change which leads to isolation. This Faulkner classic shows us how Emily became isolated because of her families, community and tradition.

“Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town” (Faulkner 1). Emily, a member of the town’s elite class, relied upon her father when growing up and after his death, she refused to pay her taxes, stating that her father contributed much to society. But it was evident that she didn’t pay them because of a lack of maturity - financially and socially. When she was younger she pushes herself onto Homer Barron, a Northerner with no interest in marriage. Throughout the story, Emily is conflicted over societal change, and clings to her privileged manner even after finding herself in poverty. Yet, she becomes involved with a man from a lower social class, and a Northerner as well - hinting that he has different beliefs and values. The townspeople, however, believe the relationship it too modern when there is a possibility they are having physical relations despite not being serious about marriage. The community’s inability to commit to progress, contribute to the confused Emily’s decision. In A Rose for Emily, Faulkner uses the symbolism of Emily’s house and her hair to demonstrate her emotional instability and physical deterioration, illustrating the outcome of his story.

“A Rose for Emily’’ By William Faulkner and “The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman,” are two short stories that both incorporate qualities of similarities and difference. Both of the short stories are about how and why these women changed for lunacy. These women are forced into solitude because of the fact that they are women. Emily’s father rejects all of her mates; the husband of Gilman Narrator (John) isolates her from stimulation of any kind. Emily is a recluse trapped in a depreciated home and the narrator in Gilman’s story is a delusional woman confined to her bedroom. These

Throughout the madness displayed in “The Yellow wallpaper” and the disappearance of Nora at the end of “A doll’s house”, we could see both women are confined and controlled by their marriages, Nora from Henrik Ibsen's play “A Doll's House” and the narrator from Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" portray the negative treatment of women throughout society during the 19th century. These women long for the activity and stimulation, which they have been deprived of as the product of a society that puts women in the lowest division, and they resolve to triumph over their husbands and free their souls. Therefore, seeing these vast similarities’ in these stories when it comes to the husbands John from “The Yellow

In the short stories “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner and “The Yellow Wallpaper”” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonists experience mental illness, loneliness, feelings of being in control of their lives, and feelings of being insane. Both main characters struggle against male domination and control. The two stories take place in the late 1800’s - early 1900’s, a time where men’s place in society was superior to that of women. Each story was written from a different perspective and life experiences. “A Rose for Emily” was written by a man and told in third personal narration, while “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written by a female and told in first person.

The two short stories “ A Rose for Emily” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” are two very similar but at the same time very different. The main characters Emily Grierson, from William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily", and the narrator, from Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper," are both in the same boat that many women were placed in the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s. Both of these two stories were written in a generation that women were looked downed upon and made to feel less important than males. I feel these two stores are similar in terms of where women stood in society at that time and how society affected emotional downfalls in both of these main characters. These women are both the protagonists of each of those two stories who both go from being extremely depressed and lonely to absolutely insane. However, these stories are written in totally different point of views which creates two totally different outlooks. “A rose for Emily “is written in third person while “Yellow Wallpaper” is written in first person. Also, the characters are different in terms of that they have two completely different personalities. The two authors ideas in both of these stories focus on how women are looked down upon in different situations and generations in society at that time of history.

In “A Rose for Emily” she grows up with her father who was very controlling over Emily’s life. He controlled all aspects of her life such as any men who were interested in Emily were sent away by her father. This kept Emily isolated from everyone in the town and she never left her house. According to Watkins “The Structure of ‘A Rose For Emily, “The inviolability of Miss Emily’s isolation is maintained in the central division, part three, which no outsider enters her home.” In “The Yellow Wallpaper” it is shown that the female narrator is desolate and is put in an attic room away from everyone. It is also revealed that she is not treated fairly or well taken care of when her husband who is a physician does not help her get better. From “Gender in The Yellow Wallpaper” Carmen Esposito says “However, her husband never

When the woman gets out of bed to investigate the wallpaper in the room, her husband says, “What is it, little girl? Don’t go walking about like that-you’ll get a cold” (319). His choice of words of calling her a “little girl” belittles the woman and amplifies her feelings of being isolated, not only physically, but emotionally. Since her husband is away most of the time and leaves her in confinement, the woman immerses herself into studying the wallpaper “[following] the pattern about by the hour” (317). She follows all the twist and turns of the wallpaper, decoding each detail and discovers what she seems to be a woman in a cage. She spends all her time looking at the paper that she eventually becomes obsessed with figuring out the patterns. She begins to identify with the woman in the cage which could signify her imprisonment in the room and her being tormented by her husband’s lack of sympathy for her condition and his dominance in their marriage. Just as male dominance is an issue for the woman in Gilman’s work, Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” details how Emily’s father and love interest dictate her life.

In both short stories the main character is judged by the surrounding people: Emily as a conceited, ill woman, and the unnamed narrator as a “sick”, depressed woman. In “A Rose for Emily” the townspeople were extremely nosey and very judgmental about how people should live there life. Watkins argues “The contrast between Emily and the townspeople and between her home and her surroundings is carried out by the invasion of her home by the adherents of the new order in the town” (509). Also it is displayed sometime after Emily’s father died when she went to the druggist and ordered arsenic to kill rats (Faulkner 78-79). “…The next day we [the townspeople] all said, ‘She will kill herself’; and we [the townspeople] said it would be the best thing (Faulkner 79). In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the unnamed narrator is judged by her family and friends. In the introduction of the story the unnamed narrator reveals that her husband, also a physician, belittles her illness and her general thoughts of life (Gilman 408). “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own

“The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “Just a Girl” by the band No Doubt is a song about the oppression of women in two separate time periods and, with that, two different styles of women oppression. The first of these pieces of work, “The Yellow Wallpaper” explores the oppression of women during the late 1800’s, the time the book was originally released. The latter of these works, the song “Just a Girl”, explores oppression of women taking place in a more contemporary and modern society. Comparing and contrasting these pieces of work can highlight the developing nature and power of patriarchy along with women’s perspective on life.

The women in Faulkner's and Gilman's stories are victims of male over-protectiveness.  The men that rule their lives trap Emily in "A Rose For Emily" and the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper". Each character must retreat into their own world as an escape from reality.

THESIS: The sexist surroundings that entrap the Narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Miss Emily Grierson in “A Rose for Emily,” and Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter ultimately suppress the respective protagonists’ identities as women, leading them to suffer in isolation.

In a “Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, Emily is isolated from the rest of the town and rarely leaves the house, especially after the death of her father and aunt. She spent most of her time on the house while the rest of the town pitied her saying “Poor Emily” (Faulkner 37). It was not until she met Homer Barron that the she finally felt comfortable and could leave the house. Still the town continued to gossip and rumors began to spread about Homer’s true interest. Emily leaving in isolation and not being able to fulfill the love she needed or to leave comfortably with protection.

The narrator’s confinement is symbolized through the nursery room, the barred windows within it, and the “rest cure” treatment she receives from her husband. Her domestic life also confines her to the “Victorian Ideal” of women in her time that she is unable to conform to (Moss and Wilson 422). Her husband forbids her to write in her journal because it will give her another job other than being a mother to her child and a wife to her husband. Because her husband treats her as a child, the window with roses in the nursery symbolizes her childish perspective and view of reality through her confinement within her marriage. Her husband tends to call her “little girl” and “blessed little goose,” (Quawas 5). When she finally rips down the wallpaper, it symbolizes her breaking free from her marriage. The narrator’s self repression is symbolized through the woman she sees in the wallpaper, the women “creeping” in her garden, and the narrator’s resurrection from her illness and controlling marriage. Overall, Charlotte Perkins Gilman symbolizes self-repression, setting, confinement, place in society, perspective, and self-resurrection through her autobiography “The Yellow Wallpaper” and its narrator going through the depression that she herself once went