Compare And Contrast In A Rose For Emily And The Yellow Wallpaper

1156 Words3 Pages

Compare and Contrast Essay
The women in William Faulkner 's "A Rose for Emily" and Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's "The Yellow Wallpaper" are impelled to insanity because they are confined by the dominating male figures in their lives. The men in both stories use gender and social status as means of controlling these women. Isolation is also utilized by both men as a method of control which plays a major role in the mental instability of these women. The stories both take place in an era when women were seen as weak fragile individuals who were not able to think for themselves. Both women withdraw into their own individual worlds as a strategy of escaping the reality of the world they actually live in. In addition, these women rebel as a method of obtaining some sense of control over their lives. Although both women are detached from the world around them the consequence of …show more content…

Emily demonstrates this by refusing to follow suit with her immediate community. Emily 's refusal to have numbers placed on her house as well as pay her taxes are both indicative of her abnegation to comply with society as well as choices imposed on her by others. Similarly in “The Yellow Wallpaper” the woman who has been instructed to do nothing but rest and avoid any form of stimulation continues to write in secret, “And I know John would think it absurd. But I must say what I feel and think in some way—it is such a relief” (66), using that as a means of rebelling against her husband who believes he knows what is best for her and her fragile state. When she states, “And I 've pulled off most of the paper, so you can 't put me back!” this clearly demonstrates that she doesn 't need anybody to help her. That she is in control and does not have to comply with the limits placed on her by her husband or anybody else who believes they know better than she what is in her best

Open Document