Insanity and Madness in A Rose For Emily and Yellow Wallpaper

Insanity in A Rose For Emily And The Yellow Wallpaper    The women in Faulkner's and Gilman's stories are victims of male over-protectiveness.   The men that rule their lives trap Emily in "A Rose For Emily" and the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper". Each character must retreat into their own world as an escape from reality. Emily is destroyed by her father's over-protectiveness. He prevents her from courting anyone as "none of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such" (82). When her father dies, Emily refuses to acknowledge his death; "[W]ith nothing left, she . . . [had] to cling to that which had robbed her" (83). When she finally begins a relationship after his death, she unfortunately falls for Homer Baron who "liked men" and was "not a marrying man" (84)... ...the trap that society has placed them in. Works Cited Faulkner, William. "A Rose For Emily." The Norton Introduction To Literature. Eds. Jerome Beaty and J. Paul Hunter. 7th Ed. New York, Norton, 1998. 1: 502-509. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." The Norton Introduction To Literature. Eds. Jerome Beaty and J. Paul Hunter. 7th Ed. New York, Norton, 1998. 2: 630-642.