Comparison of Style and Purpose

¶ … Rose for Emily," which was authored by William Faulkner in 1930 and "The Yellow Wallpaper," that was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892, both are intimate stories about women living in their particular times in the United States. In addition, both provide true insights into what it was like as a female living during these historic times. However, the styles of the two authors make the stories very different in their approach and effect on the readers.

"A Rose for Emily," told in five separate sections, is rich with the descriptions, plot structures and mood that made Faulkner such a dynamic and memorable writer. After only a few lines into his artistic work, the reader is transposed into that period and place.

For example, when reading the second paragraph, one can easily imagine the look and style of the house: "It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street.

But 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 wagons and the gasoline pumps -- an eyesore among eyesores." Yet Faulkner goes beyond describing the house by itself. He actually uses symbolic writing to compare the house with its owner, as if they had actually become one -- which, ironically, they had.

Although a "slender woman in white" who held her head high and proud when young, later she had grown fat, gray-haired and old. Like her house, she is aged, graying and decayed. Even the "rose" in the title has a number of symbolic meanings: In its prime, the rose is a wondrous sight. However, it does not last long, but shrivels up and soon loses its fragrance and beauty. It is also a symbol of love, which, in this story, also withers and dies.

During the Middle Ages, the rose was a symbol of martyrdom, another way to look at Emily's life. And, a rose is something that is placed on a grave, a foreshadowing of what is to come, which is another Faulkner literary style. A third-person narrator tells the story through a number of flashbacks of the past and foreshadowing of what is to come. Throughout the tale this storyteller moves back and forth through a series of events during the tragic life of Emily Grierson and her town.

The pieces of the story are interwoven, just as Emily's life is interwoven with the townspeople. Finally, is the ability of Faulkner to create mood in so few words -- in the case of the ending, just a strand of hair. Who cannot feel sorrow, pity, and yet disgust for Emily? "Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head.

One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair." "The Yellow Wallpaper" is another story about what is expected of women. Both of these stories show the suffering of females because of the way they are treated -- actually mistreated -- and victimized, because they want a different life than the norm. In Gilman's story, the narrator, a new mother, is told to abandon her writing and intellectualism.

In fact, she does not even have an identity because she remains nameless. Whereas Faulkner moves his story along with detailed description and third-person narration, Gilman carries the reader into the action through ongoing first-person thoughts and comments. The readers learn about Emily through the eyes of the narrator and townspeople, and they learn about Gilman's character right from her own thoughts and fantasies. By the end of the story, the reader is in her mind and feeling her mental breakdown, obsession and fight against insanity.

Like Faulkner, Gilman also uses symbolism to shed light on the characters. In both stories, the houses depict something much more than a building. In "A Rose for Emily," not only is it a symbol of her aging, but also for her hiding away from the town. For good or bad, the house shields her from others. It becomes her fort. For the woman in "Yellow Wallpaper," however, the house is a prison.

It stands for the expectations society has for women at that time -- to be a dutiful mother and housewife. Instead of a means of protection, the walls consume her and become all the negative she sees around her. The house is surrounded by hedges and "gates that lock." At the top of the stairs is a gate that keeps the narrator from leaving the top floor. The windows of the room itself are barred.

The narrator is kept like an animal in this room without possibility for escape, just as American women.