The environment is having a very big effect to people surrounded by it. The way parents treated their child will have a direct influent on whom and what they want to become in the future.
The relations of people to a person might lead that person to their ruin. From “A Rose For Emily” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”, we can see very clearly the evident that lead these women to their tragic ending. In “A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner, a noble woman being isolated from people in her town and because of loneliness she end up insane and have a tragic life.Also in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator is being restricted to all her favorite things and that leads her to insanity.
These two women have one thing in common: they were forced to insanity by the people surrounded them. In “A Rose For Emily”, the main factor that leads to the change of Emily’s mental and physical is: the isolation of the people of the town. Before Emily was considering one of the best looking people in town: “None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. page 486; now Emily looks more like a drowned body:”She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water” page 485 Due to the fact that Emily lived in a big house and had a colored servant, it made the people in town think that Emily is not one of them and thus it’s easier for them to put her aside and ignore her.
In addition because of her father’s ideas, she always thought she was someone special better than the rest of the rest of the people in town, and that is the reason why she never got married.Thus her father is the only one that can take care and protect her. There are two people that have the most influenced to Emily’s life were her father and her lover. Her father raised her as a real “lady” and he thought none will be good enough for her so he chased away all the people that came and asked for Emily.
Her first appearance of insanity when her father died, since he was the only one that is close to her so she refused to accept that he’s dead: “She told them that her father was not dead.She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. ” page 486 Later when Emily met Homer Barron, “a Yankee – a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face. ” page 487, she fell in love with him.
However, people thought that it is a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people because they Emily was a Southerner while Homer was a Northerner and also a laborer:”Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer. page 487 Because of all the rejecting from the people in town and her relatives that pushed her to the edge and into insanity, Emily did what she could to stay with her lover even kill him.After the death of her lover, Emily closed up her door and isolated herself from people in town and the people didn’t care about that because they knew it will happen to her soon or later: “Then we knew that this was to be expected too,” page 489 The only thing that made the whole town remember and knew if she alive was the payment of her taxes.Other than that no one in town really knew that Emily was sick until the day she died: “We did not even know she was sick; we had long since given up trying to get any information from the Negro.
” page 489 The people just didn’t want to find-out about Emily, they just wanted to abandon her because that was an easiest way for them and they didn’t have to take any responsibility for Emily. On the other hand, the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” of Charlotte Perkins Gilman is about a woman who became insane because of the people that are close to her and specially her husband’s actions.Throughout the story, the way John talked and made decision for his wife just like the way he treated a little kid: “Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose,” page578. Because of that it made her feel like she was incapable of doing thing and she had to listen to everything John said.
Beside treating her like a small child, John forbids her to express herself in writing: “There comes John, and I have to put this away, – he hates to have me write a word. page 577Also John tried to limit his wife to interact with her relatives, he didn’t satisfied her by letting her go and see her cousin because he thought her appearance will makee him look bad because he is a physician and he couldn’t cure her: “and I did not make out a very good case for myself,” page 581 John didn’t allow his wife any freedom at all, he made her stay in a room, she didn’t like at all, with yellow wallpaper on the walls that she dreaded and the windows were barred.Staying in the room everyday and night without anything to entertain, she started to use the shadows to see women in the wallpaper and later she imagines herself in there too. Also she saw the patterns of the wallpaper as bars to imprison the “shadow woman” in it: “At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be.
page 583 Also her bed has been nail down, the nail down bed brought out her desperate of being free from the barred room and the wall paper:”This bed will not move! I tried to lift and push it until I was lame, and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner – but it hurt my teeth. ” page 587 The forbiding of her husband had forced her into her loneliness and isolation from the outside world and that was the main reason that leads her to insanity. The stories “A Rose For Emily” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” are represent for the image of women in the eightieth.In a society men hold all the power to controlled women.
In “A Rose For Emily”, her father is one that represent for the men and society where they tell the women what to do and they have to obey it. The reason Emily being isolated from the people in her town is not her fault, because she was born and raised like she was someone special. Also her father is the one that chased away anyone who came and asked for her, he is the one that made Emily’s life different from the people in town.On the other hand, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” John is the one that represents for all the men and doctors, he had the power to overcome his wife and tell her what she can do and can’t: “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression – a slightly hysterical tendency – what is one to do? ” page576 John also represents everything in the society that holds her down and it also the reason that she never get well: “perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.
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