Gender Roles In A Rose For Emily And The Necklace

In classic literature, female protagonists endure many similar experiences, even if the characters are vastly different. Together, these women face external pressures to fulfill their traditional, or expected, roles as a consequence of their generation. This world-vs.-self conflict is highlighted by Emily in A Rose for Emily and Mathilde in The Necklace. As products of their time, they work within similar societal structures in the different ways they know how. As standalone characters, Emily and Mathilde could not be more opposite, but contextually, their lives within their time call for the parallel of both. In essence, Emily and Mathilde find themselves expected to be demure housewives that mind the kitchen and “exist in networks, largely

Likewise, the portrait of Emily and her father, with her in the background while he sits in the foreground, demonstrate the true-to-life approach Emily has grown to take. Under scrutiny, Emily’s life is dissected and the ever-present expectation to live in the shadow of a man persists, starting from her father and ending with Homer Barron. With feelings of abandonment by her father and external pressures were so overpowering, Emily resorts to poisoning Homer, with the comfort of never being alone again. By the same token, Mathilde explores how to achieve her goals through her husband. A point that Shelton Matthews outlines in his 1924 paper and Mathilde also understands “The wife may spend the best years of her life laboring in the home or assisting the husband in his business; but if prosperity comes, all the property belongs to him. Sometimes her property even in her clothes is limited to the use of them, because under the common law the ownership of a married woman’s clothes is in her husband...” (196). Within these means, Mathilde schemes, resulting in an fabulous dress from her husband and extravagant diamond necklace from her friend for the ball. Not only did she lose the necklace that night, but she lost the only assets she had ever known, her beauty and grace. The one night at the ball that caused years of debt repayment in order to replace the necklace, as Emily’s time with Homer, proved fruitless because Emily was still alone and the necklace was made of