This essay examines four female characters from classic American and French short stories—Maupassant's Madame Loisel, Faulkner's Emily Grierson, Porter's Granny Weatherall, and Welty's Phoenix Jackson—through the shared lens of loss, regret, and concealed pain. Each woman harbors secrets shaped by circumstances beyond her full control, prompting the reader to reflect on the ironies of life and the difficult choices women are often forced to make. The paper explores how societal expectations, romantic betrayal, and familial love drive these characters, and considers what each story ultimately asks the reader to feel—not pity, but understanding.
This paper demonstrates comparative character analysis: identifying a shared thematic attribute (women concealing pain caused by circumstance) and tracing how each author develops that attribute differently. This technique requires the writer to move beyond plot summary toward interpretation of character motivation and authorial intent.
The essay opens with a thesis introducing four female characters as reflections of loss and regret. It then addresses each character in a dedicated section, building from Madame Loisel's material longing, through Emily Grierson's disturbing isolation, to Granny Weatherall's romantic wound, and finally to Phoenix Jackson's redemptive determination. A brief conclusion synthesizes the shared theme, arguing that these stories invite understanding rather than judgment.
These four stories share a common thread: lives that have been regretfully lived. Each of the four main characters offers the reader a glimpse into the looking glass of life as seen from the perspective of loss. Maupassant's Madame Loisel, Faulkner's Emily Grierson, Porter's Granny Weatherall, and Welty's Phoenix Jackson are women harboring secrets that have so drastically changed their respective lives that they encourage the reader to contemplate the complete ironies of life—especially if the reader's own life has seen similar circumstances. These women's stories speak to the heart of what many women struggle to hide and beg the question: "Have I made the right choice?" Yet it also seems that the choices made by each of these women were forced upon them by the circumstances at the time those choices were made.
Madame Loisel had always "had no clothes, no jewels, nothing" (Maupassant 1). When the one opportunity to shine as she had always wanted presented itself, she was desperate to present herself in a way that would be remembered. Madame Loisel had always "longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after" (Maupassant 1) that her longings could only be fulfilled with a complete transformation—one so complete that only a real adornment would suffice. Hence, the necklace. And not just any necklace would do, but one that was "in a black satin case, a superb diamond necklace" (Maupassant 3)—one that, when she saw it, made "her heart begin to beat covetously" (Maupassant 3).
The reader can empathize with Madame Loisel while at the same time wondering at the driving force inside her that led her to believe the necklace was so fine, so valuable, that it would be the crowning adornment to her ensemble. In Madame Loisel's case, the necklace symbolized her dream to be something she was not—a longing born entirely of circumstance rather than character flaw alone.
Faulkner's character is much more difficult to discern. One could make the case that Emily was, in fact, disturbed. After all, there are not many women in the world who would kill their lover and then lie with his decaying corpse for years on end. What is truly tragic about Emily is that everyone knew what she was doing, yet no one took the initiative—or cared enough about her—to take action. Instead, the townspeople "slunk about the house like burglars…while one of them performed a regular sowing motion with his hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder" (Faulkner 2). The townspeople were covering up a smell that could only have been produced by death.
That this continued until Emily finally died is confirmed when Faulkner writes, "we already knew that there was one room in that region above stairs no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced" (Faulkner 5). The question that lingers after reading this story is why it went on so long. Was it because Emily was a beloved citizen of the town? The reader can only surmise that the townspeople perceived Emily as so far beyond help that they would leave well enough alone. Faulkner writes that the townspeople "were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized" (Faulkner 2).
This story reads more as a condemnation of a society that would allow such things to happen—and of the father who drove Emily to such lengths—than as a condemnation of Emily herself.
What is interesting in all four of these stories is that the female characters are portrayed as looking back on lives of choices that affected them in a myriad of ways. Yet the reader is not really asked to feel sorry for these women; rather, the reader is asked to understand why women act the way they do, or at least to understand the choices they make.
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