Essay Comparing The Yellow Wallpaper And A Rose For Emily

Emily was growing old. Her hair was shortening and turning gray. Soon after realizing that “Homer was not the marrying man” and that he would much rather spend his time with young male mates, Emily decided to retaliate. In order to not lose what she thought was the love of her life, Emily went down to the nearest drug store and bought some rat poison and gave it to Homer. Homer died and Emily kept his body in the upstairs room where no one would dare to go.

Just as they were about to resort to law and force she breaks down and buried her father quickly.” (Faulkner 453) Miss Emily tries to keep her father’s body so she isn’t left lonely. She tries to keep him until the townspeople basically force her to bury him. The second reason Miss Emily may be crazy and mentally ill is because she kills Homer Baron.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Story of an Hour" written by Kate Chopin were written in the late 1800s. They may seem pretty different at first, but they both discuss women 's confinement in society in the late 1800s. Moreover, while these two stories focus on social status based on gender, in doing so, they bring out the effects of gender roles and gender stereotypes that end in affliction. In the story "The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman paints a picture for the reader starting off with the narrator a housewife who feels detached from society due to her husband’s controlling nature.

Not only that, as Homer becomes a popular figure in town and is seen taking Emily on buggy rides on Sunday afternoons, it scandalizes the town and increases the condescension and pity they have for Emily. They feel that she is forgetting her family pride and becoming involved with a man beneath her station. Even though Emily is from the high class family, it does not mean that she is living up to the pleasant lifestyle. As a matter of fact, she is actually living a gloomy and desolate life, which is essentially the opposite lifestyle expected for Emily's rank in society by the townspeople. Although Emily once represented a great southern tradition centering on the landed gentry with their vast holdings and considerable resources, Emily's legacy has devolved, making her more a duty and an obligation than a romanticized vestige of a dying order.

“We remembered all the young men her father had driven away” (453). Miss Emily’s father drove away young men interested in her, not allowing her to have a love life and therefore a life outside of him. This controlling treatment of Miss Emily by Mr. Grierson coincides with Emily’s fight to control her love life with Homer. “Because Homer himself had remarked - he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks’ Club - that he was not a marrying man” (454). If it weren’t for the fact that Miss Emily murdered Homer, he would have left her, therefore she used the murder as a way to keep him close to

Conformity is a change in behavior, which is normally caused by another person or a group of people’s thoughts or opinions of someone. When an individual is constantly told that they are a certain way, the individual will eventually begin to believe it and conform to other’s views without even realizing it. This happened to the young Emily Grierson, by a numerous amount of people, and continued to happen until the day of her death. Many can probably say that it was the main reason for her deteriorating mental condition, instability, and the strange approach of how she handled death. “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is an unusual story about a girl with a troubled mind who is eventually pushed over the edge by the constant gossip of the townspeople and the heartbreak of a lover.

The previous lavishness of the “big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies…set on what had once been [the] most select street” (437) indicates that Emily came from a well-off family that was probably highly respected. The whiteness of the house can be taken to symbolize the innocence of her youth, and that as she got older her macabre habits manifested themselves and polluted that innocence, leaving the house dingy and tainted. The condition of the house when Emily dies is that of a worn down vestige to the past, “an eyesore among eyesores” (437), representing how the towns people saw her. She was a curiosity, a clandestine entity that could only be unraveled after her death when there was no one left to safe guard the dark secrets of her house. The house stands as a monument to a lost time and a testament to tradition that has no place in the modern era, much like Emily

Miss Emily comes from an old wealthy line of family in the deep south. Faulkner story is highly symbolic, enhancing miss Emily’s values and character. “Miss Emily is described as a fallen monument to the chivalric American South”(Allmon). Faulkner uses the setting of the story to show the emotional state of Emily. The female-male relationship between Emily and her father is strict, oppressive, and controlling; Their relationship has a major impact on Emily’s character Throughout the short story.

The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin and the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Stetson were both written by women to express how they were treated in their time period. Both of these stories were criticized because they challenged the belief that a woman should not be just a docile wife. These two pieces of literature utilized symbolic imagery, repetition, and dramatic irony to convey the common theme shared that women are opressed by the standards of society. In Chopin's Story of an Hour, Mrs. Mallard sees the outside world through the only window in her room.

She was alone, she was humiliated by the town, she had to hide away because she was not able to cope. In Tim O’Brien’s article he states, “After her death, Emily is reunited with the other members of her southern class …”, which means, in death, with the people she loved she will no longer be alone” (O’Brien

In the nineteenth century, woman had no power over men in society. They were limited in their freedom, as their lives were controlled by their husbands. Some women did not mind this lifestyle, and remained obedient, while some rebelled and demanded their rights. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, are short stories that exposes the lifestyle women lived in the nineteenth century. The protagonists from both stories, Jane and Georgiana, similarly lived a male dominated lifestyle.

As the story goes on, Faulkner describes Emily’s death: “When Miss Emily Grierson died the whole town went to her funeral: the men out of respectful affection for a fallen monument and the women mostly out of curiosity” (Faulkner). Faulkner emphasizes that while men are caring and respectful women act only based on curiosity. Indeed, the role of women in the southern society is less significant than the role of

Loneliness, isolation, and lack of attention forced people to sink into depression. " The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is the story about the relationship between a repressive husbands whom pushes his wife from depression into insanity. " A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner is the story about a woman who is overpoweringly influenced by her dad, and she begins to deteriorate emotionally after his death. The two stories are about how people can influence the deterioration of one 's mental state.

At a young age, Miss Emily had a great quantity of pretendants, but her father though that none of those man were sufficient for his only daughter, or that is what the narrator let us know. “None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily […]” (Faulkner, 4); this quote real meaning is that because of his overprotection she would not get married during her young years and by consequence would not form a family, this being analyzed from the perspective of the time the story was written. It is for this reason that she was dependent of her father and all that he possessed that she did not worked at all. Although it is mentioned that on her last years she gave china-paint lessons, it is not mentioned if she did it for money or for

This fear and attachment led the mentally ill Miss Emily to do something truly horrific. In order to keep Homer with her forever, she poisoned him and kept his body rotting within her bedroom. Now Miss Emily could have Homer’s company whenever she wanted without the fear of him