Control and Manipulation in A Rose for Emily and The Yellow Wallpaper

In the short story A Rose for Emily written by William Faulkner, readers are immersed in the narrative of a supposed town member who describes the impact that the recent death of an old woman has had upon their small community. In the narrative, readers are taken on a journey through the life of Miss Emily, an old, lonely woman who is seemingly frozen in her own timeframe. As the story unfolds, readers learn about the various tragedies Emily encountered in her lifetime such as the sudden death of her controlling father as well as her alienation from other family members that leaves her utterly alone following his death. Audiences also learn about events that happened throughout Emily’s life that both molded her as a person and aided in shaping her reputation around the town. From her controversial relationship with a construction worker named Homer Barron to her suspicious purchase of arsenic at the local drug store, there is no question that Emily lived under the constant scrutiny of her fellow townspeople. After reading the initial sentences, it can be concurred that this story doesn’t simply describe the life of an old, questionably insane woman, but also the story of the age-old battle between old and new. Through symbolism and an artful arrangement of the events described, Faulkner is able to meticulously weave a tale of the clash between newer and older generations’ views and standards.

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

In the short story “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner, Emily, the protagonist, is shown as someone who’s life is falling apart and brought down by society. Emily in this story could be described as a victim to society and her father. Emily Grierson’s confinement, loss of her father and Homer, and constant criticism caused her, her insanity.

This annotated bibliography is designed to give the readers comprehensive understand of how the theme of feminism is manifested in William Faulkner short story A Rose for Emily. The information gathered about the story was mainly taken from scholarly journals and credible internet sources. The information gathered on the primary text gives and in-depth and critical look on the topic feminism. Through ongoing secondary research literary critics have a wide interpretations of the primary sources. In relation to the topic feminism, literary critics say that feminism can be seen in the story. Issues that literary critics emphases on are the reason behind the feminism theme. Some say it is because of the author personality, while others say it is just the writer expressing what he sees around him during the time that the story was written. These interpretation by literary critics have influenced me not only to look at the words in story but also to look at the author. Further research on the author would be useful, which will give me a full understand of who he is and what was going on when the story was written.

In “A Rose for Emily” Miss Emily Grierson live a life of quiet turmoil. Her entire life has revolved around an inexplicable loneliness mostly characterized by the harsh abandonment of death. The most vital imagery utilized by Faulkner demonstrates Miss Emily’s mental condition. She, being self-improsened within the confines of her home, is the human embodiment of her house; Faulkner describes it as “... stubborn an coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps--an eyesore among eyesores.” (Faulkner 308).

Despite differing story lines, Charlotte Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, depict the same suffering; the isolation that women have been forced to endure throughout history. In the time period that all three characters were placed, it was culturally acceptable for wives to be dominated by their husbands; their responsibility revolving around the needs of their children and those of their spouse. Most women simply did not have a means or an idea of how to rebel against their husbands. The women in all three stories are protagonists who have poor relationships of emotional attachment with their spouses. While the main character of Gilman’s story endures multiple psychotic

“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner presents yet another example of a woman who possesses feelings of adoration and hatred but is constantly in despair and isolation because of the male influences in her life. Like the woman, Delia, in “Sweat”, she holds these hateful and even fearful feelings held up inside of herself until she acts out and does something drastic, for example, murdering Homer Barron (913). In “A Rose for Emily”, like in “Sweat”, the male figures are characterized as being very authoritative and controlling, in the case of Emily, her father is this male figure. The narrator provides a detailed description of him next to Emily as others pictured them, as a “tableau”. “Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the backflung front door.”(909). The imagery of the father clutching the whip next to the fragile Emily against a such a pure white background brings one to see and acknowledge the dominating and controlling nature of their relationship, better than any passage of conversation ever could

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 author, William Faulkner, has a collection of books, short stories, and poems under his name. Through his vast collection of works, Faulkner attempts to discuss and bring awareness to numerous aspects of life. More often than not, his works were created to reflect aspects of life found within the south. Family dynamics, race, gender, social class, war, incest, racism, suicide, necrophilia, and mental illness are just some of the aspects that Faulkner explored. In “A Rose for Emily” the aspects of necrophilia and mental illness along with the societal biases that were observed in a small-town setting are seen to be a part of this captivating story. These aspects ultimately intertwine with the idea of insanity that characterizes “A Rose

In Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, and Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, both women are suffering from emotional situations. This pain is coming from the controlling male influences in there lives. The protagonist in “A rose for Emily” is a young, slender girl who is tormented by her father’s influence in her life. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Jane, is a wife who is suffering from post partum and loneliness. Both of these women suffer from similar emotional depression, but differ in the way they go about becoming free.

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.

The structure of the text, particularly evident in the author’s interactions with her husband, reveals the binary opposition between the façade of a middle-class woman living under the societal parameters of the Cult of Domesticity and the underlying suffering and dehumanization intrinsic to marriage and womanhood during the nineteenth century. While readers recognize the story for its troubling description of the way in which the yellow wallpaper morphs into a representation of the narrator’s insanity, the most interesting and telling component of the story lies apart from the wallpaper. “The Yellow Wallpaper” outwardly tells the story of a woman struggling with post-partum depression, but Charlotte Perkins Gilman snakes expressions of the true inequality faced within the daily lives of nineteenth century women throughout the story. Although the climax certainly surrounds the narrator’s overpowering obsession with the yellow wallpaper that covers the room to which her husband banished her for the summer, the moments that do not specifically concern the wallpaper or the narrator’s mania divulge a deeper and more powerful understanding of the torturous meaning of womanhood.

“The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts a young woman’s gradual descent into insanity due to her entrapment, both mentally and physically, in the restrictive cult of domesticity. Through the narrator’s creeping spiral into madness, Gilman seeks to shed light upon the torturous and constraining societal conditions in which women are expected to live, that permeates throughout all aspects of their lives. At first glance to an average reader unfamiliar with Gilman’s history, “The Yellow Wallpaper” seems to just provide a tale about the oppressive relationship between the man and the woman in a domestic environment, however, once Gilman’s own personal life is uncovered, the story takes on a new level of depth.

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.

In 1930 William Faulkner published his very first story, “A Rose for Emily.” The story emerges with the funeral of Emily Grierson and discloses the story out of sequence; Faulkner brings into play an anonymous first-person narrator thought to be the representation of Grierson’s municipality. Miss Emily Grierson’s life was read to be controlled by her father and all his restrictions. Grierson was raised through her life with the thought that no man was adequate for her. Stuck in her old ways, Grierson continued with the Old South’s traditions once her father had passed. Awhile following her father’s death, Emily aims to put the longing for love to a stop and allows Homer Barron to enter her life. Faulkner portrays the literary movement of Modernism utilizing allegory through the post-bellum South after the American Civil War. In the short story “A Rose Emily,” William Faulkner uses a series of symbols to illustrate the prominent theme of the resistance of the refinement of life around Miss Emily.