Yellow Wallpaper
"The Yellow Wallpaper" and "A Rose for Emily"In "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the relationship between an oppressive husband and his submissive wife pushes the protagonist from depression into insanity. "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner is the story about a young woman who is overwhelmingly influenced by her father, and she begins to deteriorate mentally after his death. Both stories have many similarities and differences. The two stories are about how society can influence the decay of one's mental state. Both of these stories use a great deal of symbolism and imagery and have an ironic ending. The woman in "The Yellow Wallpaper," who is named Jane, speaks of her depression and how it is casually dismissed by her husband and brother who are both physicians. Her depression really begins to accelerate after the birth of her child, so her husband decides to place their baby in the care of another until Jane recovers. Her husband takes her to an old house in the country and puts her in a room with dingy old yellow wallpaper that has begun to fall off the walls. Jane asks her husband to replace or remove the wallpaper, but he refuses. The yellow wallpaper begins to tak . . .
When officials were sent to her home to collect taxes, she reminded them of the time when the departed mayor, Colonel Sartoris "remitted her taxes. Both of these stories use a great amount of symbolism and imagery to compete the story, and they both end with a great deal of irony. " (page # ) Jane begins to see a woman's figure in the wallpaper. The nursery at the house contains windows "barred for children," (page # ) which can represent the suppression of Jane's motherly duties. By the end of the story, John faints after he realizes that his wife's complete insanity has gone to the point of no return, and he could have probably stopped it from happening. In "A Rose for Emily," the protagonist also eventually goes insane, but that is more of a self inflicted mental deterioration. Emily's mental state begins to decline, as the house's appearance declines as well. Emily continues to present and assert herself as an affluent member of society by refusing to pay her taxes. She begins to see "a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design. Emily's father uses this display of extravagance to give an impression of wealth to onlookers. John does not wish for Jane to have any creative stimulus so he forbids her from writing, which she does anyway. Emily's highly regarded reputation also takes a fall when she begins making appearances through the town with Homer Barron, a Yankee. The Grierson house is at first described as "white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies.
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