A Rose for Emily – William Faulkner’s Storytelling by Emily Grierson. The yellow wallpaper is a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman about the young woman Jane. Both stories illustrate girls who became recluses in one way or another. If Emily did not let anyone into her house after her husband’s death, Jane’s space was limited to the room. In the fate of both girls, the events of marriage took place, in the case of Jane – the birth of a child, in the case of Emily – problems in the family. The problematic fate of the girls brought each of them to various mental disorders – if Jane trusts her revelations to the diary, then Emily completely closes herself in herself. The number of main characters in each work is commensurate with the space of the heroines’ imprisonment: the whole city seems to be watching Emily, while only her husband is interested in the fate of Jane. The main difference between these stories lies in the sending of the authors or the main themes of the works.
One of the main thrusts of Emily’s story is the main character’s inability to adapt and accept change. Due to her reluctance to pay taxes, Miss Grierson is stuck in the past tense. She refuses to have a mailbox not to receive letters (Faulkner et al., 1958). The author gradually but indeed shows the deterioration of her condition, which, nevertheless, is not accompanied by excessively vivid emotions, as in the case of Jane. The theme of The yellow wallpaper is much more poignant and social, clearly showing a protest against the oppression of women based on medical reports. The author has demonstrated in this way that women have tremendous power, which, if not correctly used, can lead to dire consequences. At the end of the piece, Jane’s husband faints when he sees where Jane’s condition has come, unable to resist this force (Gilman, 1994). After the child’s birth, Jane could focus on motherhood, but deprived of even this kind of activity, and she is forced to study the yellow wallpaper and the room in which she will spend too much time.
References
Faulkner, W., Carradine, J., & Huston, A. (1958). A rose for Emily (pp. 170-179). Paderborn, De: Verlag F. Schöningh.
Gilman, C. P. (1994). The yellow wallpaper. Project Gutenberg.