A Comparison of a Rose for Emily and the Yellow Wallpaper

A Comparison of a Rose for Emily and the Yellow Wallpaper

  • Submitted By: kelsia
  • Date Submitted: 03/20/2009 2:17 PM
  • Category: English
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A COMPARISON OF A ROSE FOR EMILY AND THE YELLOW WALLPAPER

Valarie Page
Axia College
Literature 210 Comparative Essay
Instructor: Janis Cates

How much comparison is there in the two stories “A Rose for Emily” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”? “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman,” are two short stories that are both incorporate qualities of similarities and differences. Both of the short stories are about how and why a woman changed from loneliness to 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’s narrator isolates her from stimulation of any kind. Emily is a recluse trapped in a deprecated home, and the narrator in Gilman’s story is a delusional woman confined to her bedroom. These stories both have a numerous similarities in characterization, setting, and symbolism. A major difference of these two short stories is the point of view they are written in. “A Rose for Emily” is written in third person and “The Yellow Wallpaper” is written in first person, which creates two different outlooks. The women in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" and Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" are driven insane because they feel confined by the men in their lives. They retreat into their own respective worlds as an escape from reality.

Abstract

“A Rose for Emily” is a story of isolation, loss, gossip, the conflict between old and new, and even possibility of murder. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is partly autobiographical and illustrates the fight for selfhood by a woman in an oppressed environment. Both of these female characters suffer from maintaining an image, role, and ideal that is imposed on them by men in high societies. Miss Emily is a symbol and relic of a past way of life that has passed her and society by a long time ago. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is more of a feminist than Miss Emily...

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