A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner and The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

The Hour for Emily

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.

A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner is a short story with third party narration, centered on the main character, Emily Grierson. She is suppressed by her father, life expectations and community interest in her life. The reader gets a sense that Emily cracks under all the pressure and they soon realize after her death, when she is in her seventies, that she did in fact have a mental disorder.

The second story in contrast is The Story of an Hour written by Kate Chopin. This short literature is about a railroad workers wife named Louise Mallard. She has under lying health problems, the narrator does not specify but they could have been more than likely heart issues. Ultimately she has a heart attack when she see her husband, whom she had thought had died in an accident, walk in the door.

These two stories were written in different times, by two different authors but they are made to be in the same time setting. The Story of an Hour was written in 1894 and A Rose for Emily was written in 1930. The Story of an Hour was more or less made to be a current story, in that frame of time. A Rose for Emily was written retrospectively and set in the late 1890s, early 1900’s. This makes the two stories similar because the reader can mentally visualize the charters and settings for both stories and note their similarities. A detailed description of the surroundings helps the reader connect with the story more and get mor...

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...th excitement when she is faced with the realization that she would get to spend the rest of her life alone.

In comparison, Miss Grierson is raised from a family with a known history of mental illness. Old Lady Wyatt, is assumed to be her father aunt because there is no mention of her mother in the story. All assumptions about Emily’s mental health status are clarified in the story’s conclusion. The writer makes it very clear that Emily is in fact suffering from some kind of mental illness.

The comparison and contrast between these two stories is evident. They both developed as characters in similar settings but have different situations and outcomes. They differed in their goals and how they would achieve their goals and their mental health status sets them apart. These stories have contrast and similarities, over all the differences outweigh the comparisons.