William Faulkner 's A Rose For Emily And Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's The Yellow Wallpaper

In the short stories A Rose for Emily and The Story of an Hour, Emily Grierson and Louise Mallard are both similar women, in similar time periods but they both are in entirely different situations. This essay will take these two specific characters and compare and contrast them in multiple, detailed ways.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses her short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” to show how women undergo oppression by gender roles. Gilman does so by taking the reader through the terrors of one woman’s changes in mental state. The narrator in this story becomes so oppressed by her husband that she actually goes insane. The act of oppression is very obvious within the story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and shows how it changes one’s life forever.

The story "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about control. In the late 1800's, women were looked upon as having no effect on society other than bearing children and keeping house. It was difficult for women to express themselves in a world dominated by males. The men held the jobs, the men held the knowledge, the men held the key to the lock known as society . . . or so they thought. The narrator in "The Wallpaper" is under this kind of control from her husband, John. Although most readers believe this story is about a woman who goes insane, it is actually about a woman’s quest for control of her life.

Traditionally, men have held the power in society. Women have been treated as a second class of citizens with neither the legal rights nor the respect of their male counterparts. Culture has contributed to these gender roles by conditioning women to accept their subordinate status while encouraging young men to lead and control. Feminist criticism contends that literature either supports society’s patriarchal structure or provides social criticism in order to change this hierarchy. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts one women’s struggle against the traditional female role into which society attempts to force her and the societal reaction

   The story "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a story about control. In the late 1800's, women were looked upon as having no effect on society other than bearing children and keeping house. It was difficult for women to express themselves in a world dominated by males. The men held the jobs, the men held the knowledge, the men held the key to the lock known as society  - or so they thought. The narrator in "The Wallpaper" is under this kind of control from her husband, John. Although most readers believe this story is about a woman who goes insane, it is actually about a woman’s quest for control of her life.

In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Gilman, both the main female characters are explored through their marriages, their inability to express themselves and the gender limitations of the late 1800s and the early 1900s. Curley’s Wife, in Of Mice and Men, and ‘Jane’ in The Yellow Wallpaper, are controlled by their husbands and the women are seen as inferior. This inferiority, in turn, prevents them from necessary self-expression and their actions against their husband’s wishes characterises them as disobedient. Ultimately, the death of Curley’s Wife and ‘Jane’s’ nervous breakdown highlights these two character’s extensively inferior positions and lack of power in their marriages. Many techniques were used

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

The human mind is a fragile thing. It can be both strengthen and broken down easily. Actions and even words can be the thing to kill a person mentally. Physically harming or locking away a person can lead to mental and bodily withdrawal. Harming a person with words can leave lasting effects and always stay within a person's psyche. Oppressing and locking away a person's true nature or desires can cause someone to act in way that he or she has never behaved before. When done by a loved one, it can affect a person even more. In William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” and Susan Glaspell's “Trifles”, two different women are kept mentally and physically locked away by a person who is supposed to love and protect them. Though Emily and Mrs. Wright

Most women in America nowadays are lucky enough to consider themselves to be an independent individual, but females were not always guaranteed their freedoms. Throughout the early 1900’s, authors would characterize husbands to be controlling figures. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins demonstrates just how possessive the husband is to his wife in their marriage. This short story shows just how miserable the woman is to be in a marriage with John because John, thinks it would be best that his wife is isolated to get over her postpartum depression.“The Yellow Wallpaper” demonstrates how a male dominated society leads to the woman not being their own individual by using characterization, narrator perspective, and conflict between women and society.

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.

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.

“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.

Male dominance is something that is showed in both stories “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “A Rose for Emily”. Both the women in these stories feel they can’t be complete without a dominant male role in their life or that it was forced upon them. However, they both find a way out of this over powering rule through insanity, as some people see it. In the time the stories were based and written, women were not supposed to be sophisticated or intelligent, and were over taken by their emotions. The men believed all that women were good for was housekeeping and taking care of children. In “the Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator is over ruled by her physician of a husband who believes that isolation is the best cure for her post pardon depression. While

The trails and tribulations of life can cause a person to go down a road they could have never imagined. Some people are able to rise above the issues that come their way and while others become consumed by their problems. In a male dominated society, the issues of women are often pushed to the side and they are left to deal with them alone. Therefore, some women become abused by their thoughts and problems due to the fact that they do not have the ability to tackle them alone. It becomes an internal and external battle for the scorned woman to please herself, husband (or father) and the society at the same time. In the short stories, “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by