In the stories a “Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner, and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, both talk about the daily challenges the two women have to endure on a day to day basis. Both women deal with trying to receive constant approval and satisfaction from the men who in that time period controlled their every move. In A Rose for Emily, it shows a woman who is suffering from depression and pressure to maintain her traditions, and expectations. In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, it shows a woman who is dealing with a mental disease as well as loneliness and depression. Both of these stories show what women of the time period were supposed to act during this time period. The women in “A Rose for Emily” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”, eventually lose themselves and their perspective while fighting for acceptance therefore causing them both to act irrational which leads to their death. The stories resemble uncontrollable challenges that eventually lead the women both to their demise.

In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, Emily starts off having an optimistic view to find love and happiness but her father disapproves of every man she seemed to have feelings toward causing her to eventually turn into a dishonest, secretive, murderer. With the abolition of slavery, many of the aristocrats fell financially which caused a change in the accustomed traditional roles and social lines. Faulkner understood the social and elite attitude and the opportunities that a certain status allowed in the Deep South. The rules and expectations did not apply to Emily because of the social status she held allowed her to continue to live without regards to rules or laws from the town. Unlike Faulkner, Gilman deals and expresses her opinion in a different way. Women in “The Yellow Wallpaper” we’re being oppressed by the men of the time period. Both of the women during this time period were confined and limited by the way they could live their lives. They were both secluded during this time, Emily became a recluse and locking herself away in the “deprecated house” as well as the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” being forced to remain confined in a bedroom with bars for windows. In Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper” the woman suffers from postpartum depression. The woman’s husband is a medical doctor and wants to “fix” her sickness. In order to “fix” her, he believes he needs to contain her in a secluded area therefore wants to take her somewhere where she can get away from the world. The narrator even takes medications prescribed by him that she has no idea what she is taking, “So I take phosphates, or phosphates--whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to 'work' until I am well again" (Gilman 1598). She is forced to take the medication for her disease that was diagnosed by John to cure something that he himself diagnosed. He controls her every move, what to take, when to take it, what she needs to do and how to even prevent nervousness. 

Despite the two similar texts, the characters in both of the stories handle the men that are controlling them differently. After Emily’s father’s death, she begins to depend on the man she met whom she never really loved named Homer. As soon as she begins to feel that she has somewhat of a replacement for her father, Homer disappears for weeks at a time, like Jane’s husband who frequently departs to business trips. Miss Emily feels that she is going to be left alone; therefore, she kills Homer when he returns. This action enables her to be with his rotten corpse. Jane and Emily both spent very trying times in an unsuitable environment. While Jane was suffering from “temporary nervous depression,” she was locked in a house that she declares is haunted and claimed that there are figures and or drawings on the yellow wallpaper in the room she is in. Jane instead of killing her husband he comes in one night and faints and the story ends. 
