Faulkner and Perkins Gilman, Research Paper Example

The Struggle for a Female Voice in “A Rose for Emily” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”

The female protagonists of William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and Charlotte Perkins-Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” struggle to dictate the terms of their lives but are hindered in this quest by oppressive societal expectations.  The authors use characterization, point-of-view, and symbolism to illustrate that women’s voices are considered secondary to their husbands, fathers, and the opinions of their respective communities.  Although Emily Grierson and Perkins-Gilman’s unnamed female narrator are of different ages, social statuses, and family circumstances, “A Rose for Emily” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” share a common desire to illustrate the negative impact that an individual’s inability to control their own destiny can have on both the person in question and the larger community.  Additionally, these stories provide insight into the social concerns of both Faulkner and Perkins-Gilman, illustrating the manner in which an author’s personal interests can enrich their narratives.  The literary elements employed by Faulkner and Perkins-Gilman reveal the manner in which women are controlled by the demands of their families and communities, demonstrating that there is little room in their respective societies for creativity, individuality, or personal freedom.

Emily Grierson, the female protagonist of William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily,” is a largely unknown figure in her small town.  Although she has been a presence in the community for her entire life, and comes from a well-established family with deep roots in the Southern town of Jefferson, she has no friends and remains a source of mystery for the story’s narrator, who acts as a stand-in for all Jeffersonians.  Faulkner characterizes Emily as a reclusive, sometimes unpleasant, and strong-willed woman who knows her own mind and refuses to bend to the will of the town.  Emily’s unconventionality and eccentricity wins her no friends amongst the townspeople, who see her as haughty and unfriendly, believing that “the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner, 2005).  Faulkner makes it clear that Emily was not always such a sour and strange woman; rather, the influence of her overbearing father and the failure of her relationship with Homer Barron resulted in her gradual withdrawal from the people of Jefferson.  Because she doesn’t seem to need them, the people of Jefferson make a point to return her attitude in kind, quietly celebrating Emily’s misfortunes, such as her inability to find a husband and the death of her father, which leaves her almost a pauper.  As the story’s narrator states,

it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a

way, people were glad.  At last they could pity Miss Emily.  Being

left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized.  Now she too

would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or

less.  (Faulkner, 2005)

This speaks to the nature of community, in which individuals seek to find commonality amongst each other and close ranks against any evidence of difference.  Indeed, Faulkner’s characterization of his protagonist serves to illustrate that the town itself is as much a character of “A Rose for Emily”as Emily Grierson herself.

The characterization of the unnamed narrator in Charlotte Perkins-Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” illustrates that an individual’s self-perception can differ greatly from how others see them.  The narrator is depicted as intelligent, creative, and imaginative, and yet these qualities are not necessarily positive as they lead the narrator to break with reality and become obsessed with the supernatural.  As the narrator’s husband, John, states, her “imaginative power and habit of storymaking […] is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies” (Perkins-Gilman, 2002), implying that her narrative is not to be entirely trusted.  Although the story’s young female protagonist is unwell and believes that social stimulation would improve her health, she is swayed by the forceful opinion of her doctor husband which results in her confinement and isolation from other people.  The narrator confesses to the reader that her husband may be “one reason I do not get well faster” (Perkins-Gilman, 2002), and disagrees with his diagnosis of a “temporary nervous depression” (Perkins-Gilman, 2002).  However, although the narrator believes that “congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good” (Perkins-Gilman, 2002), she remains malleable, allowing her husband to override her own instincts.  While the narrator struggles against her husband’s domination somewhat, she does not struggle too mightily, a characterization which speaks to her deep passivity and unwillingness to stand out as different or disagreeable.

The female protagonists of Faulkner and Perkins-Gilman’s stories are both characterized in ways which suggest duality.  The women have inner-selves that are at odds with how they are viewed by their family members and communities, illustrating how the private and public self can often exist at cross-purposes.  While Emily Grierson is depicted as being intelligent and strong-willed and the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is depicted as creative and sensitive, these characteristics are undermined by the pressures that they face in dealing with their external worlds.

“A Rose for Emily” is narrated by an unnamed male who acts as the voice of the entire town.  In such a way, the reader essentially learns Emily Grierson’s story second-hand, as Emily’s own point-of-view never enters into the tale.  This serves to underscore both Emily’s mysteriousness and her powerlessness, since her narrative is filtered entirely through another person’s perception of her.  For example, when the narrator describes Emily’s state of mind after her father’s death he states that

we did not say she was crazy then.  We believed she had to do

that.  We remembered all the young men her father had driven

away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to

cling to that which had robbed her, as people will. (Faulkner, 2005)

The use of the second-person in this passage changes Emily’s experience from a personal one into one that has been co-opted by her community, implying that she is seen as unbalanced while denying her the chance to tell her own side of the story.  Instead, Emily remains largely a mystery for the entire story, as it is the reaction of the people of Jefferson to Emily that illuminates the community’s fears, biases, and ignorance.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is told from the female protagonist’s point-of-view, however this first-person narrative is not necessarily any more reliable than the point-of-view the reader encounters in “A Rose for Emily.”  This is because Perkins-Gilman takes great pains to paint a portrait of a woman whose perception of reality and herself is skewed as a result of the pressures she faces in her role as wife and mother.  The story is told as if it is the narrator’s diary, which ostensibly should make it all the more personal and revealing by providing the reader with an intimate look at the narrator’s mental distress.  She writes,

I don’t feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over for

anything, and I’m getting dreadfully fretful and querulous.  I

cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.  Of course I don’t

when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone.

And I am alone a good deal just now. (Perkins-Gilman, 2002)

However, Perkins-Gilman imbues her tale with a great deal of ambiguity, leaving it unclear whether the narrator’s isolation is wholly self-imposed or the result of her husband’s increasing distance towards her.  Ironically, although the first-person narration gives the narrator a voice through which to tell her tale, there is no one in her life willing to listen to what she has to say or give her experiences any weight.

Although Faulkner and Perkins-Gilman employ different points-of-view in their stories, their methods achieve a similar result.  By using someone from Jefferson to narrate Emily Grierson’s story, Faulkner illustrates how societal conventions and expectations shape his protagonist’s experience.  And although the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” has a voice in her diary entries, they serve primarily to underscore her own instability and demonstrate that those she is closest to believe her to be of unsound mind, perhaps creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The points-of-view used in both “A Rose for Emily” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” emphasize the social and emotional isolation of the stories’ protagonists and the manner in which neither woman is allowed free reign to tell her own version of events without fear of encountering social censure and general disbelief.

The Grierson family home acts as a symbol of Emily Grierson herself, namely her isolation from the outside world and her inability to let go of the past which represents her unfulfilled dreams and ambitions.  The house’s continued existence amongst the industrial buildings and gas stations which have been built around it symbolizes Emily’s stubborn refusal to give up on the past or live by anyone’s rules but her own.  Faulkner writes that

garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the

august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily’s house was

left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton

waggons and the gasoline pumps–an eyesore among eyesores.

(Faulkner, 2005)

The presence of the house, and Emily’s success at barring entry to her neighbors until her death, is perhaps her one triumph in a life marked by failures.  Emily’s house, and most notably “that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years” (Faulkner, 2005) symbolizes her mysterious nature and the self-imposed isolation that resulted in the community’s perception of her as someone who was as much a “fallen monument” (Faulkner, 2005) as the crumbling house itself.

The rented house inhabited by the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and her family plays a similar symbolic role by illustrating the narrator’s physical and mental confinement.  The narrator suggests that the house may be haunted, and states that “there is something queer about it.  Else, why should it be let so cheaply?  And why have stood so long untenanted?” (Perkins-Gilman, 2002).  While a supernatural interpretation of “The Yellow Wallpaper” is possible, the narrator’s statements also convey the narrator’s own haunted mind, illustrating how she is unable to meld societal expectations of a woman’s duty with her own wishes to engage in creative enterprises that have nothing to do with being a wife or mother.  The house itself is physically isolated:  located several miles from the nearest village, it is “quite alone, standing well back from the road” (Perkins-Gilman, 2002).  This mirrors the narrator’s detachment from her family–although she does interact with her husband, sister-in-law, and child, they are not pivotal to her story and are often away, especially as the narrator becomes increasingly obsessed with the yellow-wallpapered room.  The narrator speaks of watching the outside world from the room’s window but never goes outside to enjoy the gardens and grounds that she initially takes such pleasure in describing.  Her failing state of mind reaches the point where she can no longer bring herself to look upon the outside world, stating that “I don’t like to LOOK out of the windows even” (Perkins-Gilman, 2002).  Although houses can be representative of the domestic realm, the narrator has instead turned her back on her familial obligations to barricade herself in the upstairs bedroom, tying herself to the bedstead with a rope and insisting that “you don’t get ME out in the road there!” (Perkins-Gilman, 2002).  The manner in which the house consumes the narrator is symbolic of how societal and familial expectations have devoured the narrator’s sense of self and individuality.

The symbolic houses of “A Rose for Emily” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” demonstrate the manner in which the female protagonists have become isolated from both their internal selves and their external communities.  While both women at one time enjoyed creative enterprises–piano playing on the part of Emily Grierson and writing for the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper”–they eventually become unable or unwilling to practice the acts that allowed them some measure of autonomy.  Both houses are large mansions in states of disrepair and see little in the way of inhabitants or visitors; indeed, Emily Grierson’s refusal to let the outside world in and the few visitors received by the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” contribute to the women’s growing isolation, strangeness, and inability to connect with other people.  That houses can be viewed as symbols of the female domain speaks to the detachment both women experience in relation to their domestic lives; although Perkins-Gilman’s narrator has a husband and child, she is as singularly alone and without aim to maintain her domicile as the recalcitrant Miss Emily.

“A Rose for Emily” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” are both reflective of their authors’ personal perspectives on the social struggles experienced by those who exist outside the realm of the status quo.  William Faulkner is noted as a preeminent writer of the Southern Gothic, a sub-genre of American literature that uses bizarre, otherworldly, and macabre elements to explore social issues such as racism, classism, and gender (Volpe, 2004).  In his exploration of “A Rose for Emily,” scholar Edmond Loris Volpe writes that the story demonstrates the author’s “own ambivalent feelings of love and hate for the South” (2004, p. 99).  Indeed, Faulkner’s portrayal of the outsider Emily Grierson illustrates his fascination with “the tragic figure of the Southerner, trapped by his [or her] pride in his heritage and tormented by conflicting needs to conform and to defy” (Volpe, 2004, p. 99).  Although Faulkner’s depiction of Emily Grierson may lack some of the overtly feminist undertones of Perkins-Gilman’s work, he depicts his protagonist in a manner which contains great dignity and strength, despite Emily’s strange proclivities.

The need for the individual to rebel against the constrains of an oppressive larger society also marks a major concern of Charlotte Perkins-Gilman.  “The Yellow Wallpaper” has become a staple of early feminist writing, with numerous scholarly interpretations of the narrator’s quest to find her own version of personal freedom.  However, the author herself best describes the aims of her story as a response to her own experience of nervous exhaustion.  After being prescribed bed rest and avoidance of all creative endeavours, she found that she was brought to “the borderline of utter mental ruin” (Perkins-Gilman, 2008).  While the story is not wholly autobiographical, it is imbued with the author’s belief that sanity comes from the freedom to pursue one’s chosen labor, which she discovered when she returned to work–“work, the normal life of every human being; work, in which is joy and growth and service, without which one is a pauper and a parasite” (Perkins-Gilman, 2008).  By illustrating through her narrator the extremes to which a woman can be driven when denied the work which makes her whole, Perkins-Gilman demonstrates the struggle that all women face when forced to choose between their family life and their personal life.  Her own battle with depression and isolation allowed her to create a short story which exemplified the personal struggles of many women, and was intended not to make readers insane, as one publisher suggested, but to “save people from being driven crazy” (Perkins-Gilman, 2008).

The societal expectations faced by Emily Grierson in “A Rose for Emily” and the unnamed narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” are a driving force behind their reclusiveness and detachment from other people.  These women hide themselves away, both literally and symbolically, in crumbling mansions which no longer nurture families or support real life.  Although both protagonists at one point had purpose-driven lives in which they sought love, creativity, and independence, their sense of self has been steadily eroded by a world that does not understand their desires. The literary elements of characterization, point-of-view, and symbolism allow for the authors to paint rich portraits of their protagonists’ dual lives:  the one that they live in public, largely in silence, and their private, secret worlds that allow them some measure of freedom to be themselves.

References

Faulkner, W. (2005).  A rose for Emily. Retrieved from http://www.wwnorton.com/college/englishlitweb05/ workshops/fiction/faulkner1.asp

Perkins-Gilman, C. (2002). The yellow wallpaper. Retrieved from http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0059.pdf

Perkins-Gilman, C. (2008). Why I wrote the yellow wallpaper. Retrieved from http://www.charlotteperkinsgilman.com/2008/04/why-i-wrote-yellow-wallpaper- charlotte.html

Volpe, E.L. (2004). A reader’s guide to William Faulkner: The short stories. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.