yellow Wallpaper VS A rose for Emily
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The stories "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner have metaphoric and symbolic significance strewn throughout the story that subtlety adds depth to the otherwise simple plots. The symbolism of the wallpaper and the rose can be interpreted in many different ways, thereby adding different facets to the story and its construction of femininity. There are many different methods of interpreting the symbolism of the wallpaper and how this relates to the construction of femininity within the text.
The first thing that needs to be discussed is: What is meant by femininity and how is it constructed? Femininity is defined as: the quality or condition of being feminine or displaying characteristics or traits traditionally held as being female. By 'construction of femininity' the question means: how is femininity portrayed and what devices are used to create this image? Therefore this essay intends to examine how the symbolism of the wallpaper and the rose portrays femininity.
The wallpaper is symbolic of the narrator's state of mind. The room in which the narrator is forced to spend her time 'convalescing' is representative of the conditions that drive the narrator to eventually lose her mind, and the dominating feature of that room is the yellow wallpaper with its "torturing" pattern. The furnishings of the narrator's room become a microcosm of the world that squeezes her into the little cell of her own mind, and the wallpaper represents the state of that mind...