Comparing Story Of An Hour And Charlotte Perkins Gilman's A Rose For Emily

Setting is an important aspect in many literary works. It provides readers a chance to look through the lenses of social perceptions and actions that were dominant during the time period. This allows readers to understand a protagonist thoughts and frustration. In the late 19th century, women were placed in the societal status of being inferior to their spouse. It was expended that they should depend on their husband to be the man of the house and the main source of income. Women were to maintain the house, do chores and cook for her husband. Along this rough time where the neglected mentally ill victims that were not given the proper medical attention needed. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and William Faulkner “A Rose for Emily” are all set in the 19th century and explains the protagonists’ urge of independence. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the setting is in a …show more content…
For example, in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator finds that she herself had been like the wallpaper, hidden and dull .the narrator was determined in freeing the women in the walls that she “peeled off all the paper [she] could reach standing on the floor” as she peeled the paper there was this rush of pride and freedom that was felt (Gilman 58). The feeling of freedom gave her the courage “to jump out of the window...but the bars [were] too strong even to try”(Gilman 59). This illustrates to the readers that the protagonist has broken out of her trap. She soon won her independence when she “had to creep over him”; this symbolized the breaking of traditional values of women being suppressed by men (Gilman 59). In all it was the room that created her insanity to grow within her mind, causing her to free the lady in the walls as well as