A Rose For Emily Suffering Analysis

Discuss the roles of human suffering in two test. You may want to think about the implications of suffering in class, gender, and social contexts.

In the stories “A rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, two women experience the physical and emotional suffering during the nineteenth century when there was the oppression of women’s rights. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator’s husband drives her insane by simply attempting to cure her disease with a ‘rest cure’. Meanwhile, in “A rose for Emily”, Emily’s father overwhelmingly dominated Emily and separated her completely from the other people in the town and after Mr. Grierson’s death, which eventually leads to a situation where Emily

has no friends and she has to cope with difficult problems alone. Since then, Emily is further isolated by possibly a mental breakdown. Although the tragedy that both women end up with by failing to attempt to break free of their isolations is because they are mentally vulnerable, ultimately the suffering that both women experienced reveals that it is the society that causes them to feel confined by their men and influences the decay of their mental health.

The reason that both female characters in two stories heavily sufferer is due to their mental disorders.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is indeed suffering a postpartum depression since she is not allowed to see her newborn child. Her husband has to hire a babysitter Mary to take care of their child: “It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous” (45). As a part of treatment for main character’s mental disorder, it was important to isolate her from their friends and family. More importantly, this treatment involves reducing the time together between infants and their mothers who have postpartum depression. Moreover, when her husband brought her to the mansion to give her a treatment, she wonders: “Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about [the house]. Else, why should it be let so cheaply?” (42). The doubt clearly shows that the narrator has a great imagination which might lead to unrealizable delusion in her mind.

Meanwhile, the protagonist in ‘A Rose for Emily” is isolated because she is incapable of accepting facts and to live independently. “The day after [her father] death, Miss Emily met [the ladies] at the door, dresses as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead” (101).

Emily’s reaction to her father’s death reveals her inability to accepting of let go of the past and as well as her inability to live independently.

After all, in the story, Emily killed her boyfriend and then keeps his corpus suggests that once again Emily cannot move on with life and make new friends.

Ultimately, with Faulkner’s Emily the restrained daughter of male dominated society and Gillman’s unnamed narrator as the victim of horrible treatment of the nineteenth century society, both characters lead lives impacted by oppression. They are not allowed to freely express their thoughts and desires. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, unnamed narrator’s husband treats her more as a patient and neglects the needs that she has as his wife: “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him” (45). The husband’s ignorance of narrator’s needs helps destroy her and prevents him from truly understanding her and her problems. Moreover, she even said that “[her husband] is practical in the extreme” (42). Her husband is overconfident about what is the best work for her. He actually falsely diagnoses the condition of his wife, and thus his wife does not get the proper treatments that she needed. Furthermore, her mistaken medical diagnose reveals the there was a lack of validity of protocols for the diagnosis and treatment of female health issues in the nineteenth century and the notion that females have to undoubtedly accept male authority.

Meanwhile, in “A Rose for Emily”, Emily’s father held their upper-class mentality a little too high for what they really were.

None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such” (106). Emily’s father is quite a stern man who regards Emily as his own private property and thus dictates every facet of her life. While alive he believes that no one in Jefferson is good enough for Emily which leads to Emily is isolated from her fellow townspeople. Also, with the influence of her father, her father shaped her personality. After her father’s death, Emily continues to isolate herself from the other town people which seem as it was Emily’s father that taught her to be alone. In Emily’s old house, there is a printing that looks like this: “Her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back flung front door” (101). This printing reveals Emily has a family without love and joy but dread and her father the center of her life. The word ‘silhouette’ suggests that not only her father’ actual shadow is on her, but also the terrible effects, which will continue for the rest of her life. ‘his back to her; and ‘a horsewhip’ tells readers that as Emily’s father gives orders to her with absolute male authority, he does not care about her opinions and emotions. Thus, he is blamed for the tragedy of Emily’s

suffering.

Certainly, the oppressive lives of both female protagonists leads to repression and, ultimately, tragic end up as both stories illustrate the position of women in a highly patriarchal society. In fact, women are not inherently vulnerable. Nowadays, as more and more women rise for pursuing gender equity in our society, men treat women with more respect than even before and less and less tragedy of women suffering from gender.