The Examination of the Protagonists in "A Rose for Emily" and "The Yellow Wallpaper"

“A Rose for Emily,” written by William Faulkner, and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, show, through their female protagonists, how isolation from society can mentally and emotionally cripple a person. In both stories, the female protagonists are secluded from society, leading them to act drastically in order to fulfill their needs for personal communication with others.

In “A Rose for Emily,” Emily finds herself alone for most of her life. Her father is her only emotional connection, because he does not allow her to run freely among the other townspeople. When Emily’s father dies, she loses the only person she has a personal bond with and she can’t handle the complete isolation she now faces. Desperate to ease her pain and unable to deal with the grief of losing her father, Emily convinces herself that he is not dead, telling townspeople “…her father was not dead” (p.208). Emily does not do this because she is crazy, but because she knows that without him, she will be completely alone. Emily does what she feels she must do in order maintain a level of sanity. When Emily meets Homer Barron, she regains the personal connection that she lost when her father died. Now, finding happiness in her connection with him, she realizes how important it is to keep that connection, in order to keep her sanity. Emily knows, from her prior experience in losing her father, that if Homer leaves her, she will become completely isolated again. Emily plans Homer‘s murder in an organized fashion, ordering “…a man’s toilet set in silver, with the letters H.B. on each piece” (p.210) and two days later, buying “…a complete outfit of men’s clothing, including a nightshirt…” (p.210). She then kills Homer, because she is not willing to risk losing him, which would lead to her own collapse from loneliness. Emily thoroughly plans the murder of Homer; something a crazy woman would be incapable of doing.

The nameless woman who faces isolation in “The Yellow Wallpaper” desperately searches for some means of interaction within the confinement of her bedroom lined with yellow wallpaper. At first, she dislikes the ugly wallpaper, saying that she is “…quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid wallpaper” (p.369). John, her husband, “…is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious” (p.368). Left alone in her room, the woman spends most of her time sleeping. Soon, she becomes lonely and begins to see the wallpaper in a different light. Desperate, she turns to her imagination to quench her thirst for personal interaction. The wallpaper is now her obsession. She “…follow[s] the pattern about by the hour” (p.370) and lays “…for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately” (p.373). She lives through the putrid paper that lines her walls, because it keeps her from feeling completely alone. The woman begins to see “…a great many women behind [the] [wallpaper], and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast…” (p.375). These women of her imagination give the lonely woman a sense of companionship, for with them she is not alone in the big bedroom. The woman uses the wallpaper, and her imagination, as an escape from the isolation that she deals with. She uses what she has in order to keep herself from feeling the darkness of isolation, her creative mind and the yellow wallpaper.

Both Emily and the nameless woman show that, when faced with isolation, a person will go to great measures to fulfill their emotion needs for interaction with others. Living in isolation, these women know that they will not last long. Therefore, they do what they feel is necessary in order to keep the thought of complete isolation at bay from their minds.