The Yellow Wallpaper and A Rose for Emily - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 6 Words: 1791 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2019/04/15 Category Literature Essay Level High school Topics: A Rose For Emily Essay Did you like this example? According to Elaine Showalter, madness gives women an excuse for expressing anger and hostility. Madness can give women the courage to stand up for themselves in a patriarchal society. Patriarchal is an adjective that describes an area where men have authority and power over women. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Yellow Wallpaper and A Rose for Emily" essay for you Create order A patriarchal society consists of men having power over women in society in general as well as in relationships. The word mad can describe a person who is severely mentally ill or out of their minds. Many situations can cause someone to go mad or insane such as isolation, obsession, or loss of control. Although these two short stories have multiple similarities and differences, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner both explore the idea of women losing themselves to madness caused by the patriarchal society. The pressure of the patriarchal society drives them to isolation, obsession, and then eventually madness. The Yellow Wallpaper, published in 1892, is the story of a woman whose husband forces her into isolation because he tells her she is sick. Throughout the story, the narrator informs the reader that she is not sick, but by the end of the story, she does become mentally ill. Her madness occurs after the isolation her husband forces her into causes her to become obsessed with the wallpaper. Her husbands control over her life also causes her to become obsessed with breaking free from the power he has over her life. Her obsessions cause her to lose herself to madness as she begins to see things that are not real. The Yellow Wallpaper shows the reader that the narrator goes mad because of her isolation. Her isolation from the world causes her to become obsessed with the wallpaper that she is surrounded by. Because her husband is convinced that she is sick, the narrator is forced to stay locked inside a house until she shows signs of improvement. The longer this goes on, the crazier she gets as she begins seeing things in the wallpaper. Throughout the story, John says things such as Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so? to convince her that he is right about her mental health when he is completely wrong (Gilman 474). His ability to manipulate her into thinking he is right about the so-called illness helps to cause the narrators madness. The way he manipulates her causes her to resent him, causing her to go mad out of frustration and anger. The way he treats the narrator makes her want to defeat him and the power he holds over her. The narrators husbands control over her life takes a very large toll on her sanity. When the narrator starts to lose her mind completely, she begins to believe the wallpaper moves because The woman behind shakes it! (Gilman 476). Since she stays in the room with the yellow wallpaper all day, she stares at it for a very long time, and this causes her to begin to hallucinate things moving and shaking inside of the paper. Her hallucinations of what is behind the paper is a sign of her going mad. She also becomes possessive of the wallpaper as if she does not want to share it with anyone else who is in the house which is the opposite of how she felt in the beginning. She hates how the wallpaper looks and makes her feel in the beginning. Her attachment to the paper shows how she is starting to go mad. The woman she sees inside of the wallpaperis herself, trying to break out of her life (Showalter 5). The version of herself she sees in the wallpaper wants to be free just like she does in h er own life, but this version of herself is the crazier side of her or the side the reader sees when she fully goes mad. Her obsession with the wallpaper and the woman she sees inside of it drive her mad. By the end, the narrator has defeated him only by destroying herself (Showalter 5). She breaks the woman out of the wallpaper which is her just allowing the madness to fully consume her. By breaking free from her husbands control, she has driven herself into a state of madness that is beyond repair. While the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper goes insane because of her husbands control of her life, A Rose for Emily, published in 1930, shows how a fathers rule can do similar damage. A Rose for Emily is about a woman whose father forces her into isolation because he does not believe anyone is worthy enough to be in his daughters life. Her father dies, leaving her all alone with no one to care for her or make decisions for her and her future. His control over her life causes a lot of damage as she does not have anyone else in her life to take care of her after he passes away. Her fathers death causes her to become obsessed with finding someone to fill the hole her father left, so she will not be alone anymore. In A Rose for Emily, Emilys madness is caused by her father controlling who she allowed into her life. The creation of her madness starts long before her fathers death, but his passing causes things to completely spiral for her. The town all knew about the young men her father had driven away (Faulkner 32). Emilys father believed that all the potential suitors who came into her life were not worthy enough for her. No one lived up to his expectations of who Emily needed in her life, so when her father was alive, he was the only person who was really in Emilys life because he pushed everyone else away from her. The isolation from the rest of the world that she experienced did not prepare her for life after her fathers death. After he died, Emily went out very little (Faulkner 31). Emilys past and present isolation from the rest of the world causes her to become obsessed with the idea of not being alone anymore. She starts to hate the idea of not being alone anymore so much that she goe s to extreme lengths to keep someone trapped in her life. Because her father controlled and provided for her, Emily does not know how to handle life without him. She has never lived life without someone making every decision for her future. When Homer Barron came into her life, she did not want him to leave her. She could not handle the thought of being alone anymore. She physically wanted someone in her life that would never leave her side. When she died, town members went inside her house and found that The man himself lay in the bed (Faulkner 35). Emily became so obsessed with not wanting to be alone that the obsession drove her to kill Homer. When she killed Homer, there was no way for him to be driven away like all the other potential suitors her father drove off. She kept his body hidden inside her house, so she would not be left by herself again. Emilys obsession with not being left alone drove her so crazy that she ended up murdering someone to keep them trapped in her world. The Yellow Wallpaper and A Rose for Emily have a few similarities. Both stories are about women who suffered from isolation and obsession that caused madness. They also share the fact that their insanity is caused by the control the patriarchal society has over their lives. Both stories are set in a time where men still had a lot of authority and say over womens lives, futures, and decisions. Both stories end with the women losing their minds because of the anger, frustration, and resentment they kept built up inside for the men in their lives that held them under their control. Although The Yellow Wallpaper and A Rose for Emily share similarities, they are also still very different from each other. In the first story, the narrator is forced into isolation by her husband who is a doctor. In the second story, Emily is isolated by her father who does not believe any man is good enough to be her husband. Although both stories take place in times where women are still controlled by men, they were written almost forty years apart as The Yellow Wallpaper was written in 1890 and A Rose for Emily was written in 1929. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator becomes obsessed with the yellow paper as well as the hallucinations of the different version of herself she is seeing within the wallpaper. In A Rose for Emily, Emily becomes obsessed with the idea of not being alone. The narrator obsesses over breaking free so much that it drives her insane, and she rips off the wallpaper to free the crazy version of herself. Emily is driven so insane by her obsession of not being alone that she kills her potential suitor, so he cannot decide to leave her all alone. The narrators obsession with the wallpaper just drove her to break free. However, Emilys obsession with not being lonely in her life anymore drove her to murder. The Yellow Wallpaper and A Rose for Emily both tell stories of women who go mad because of the patriarchal society, but the ways they go mad are slightly different. Patriarchal describes a situation where men hold power over women. In both main characters cases, their madness is caused by isolation and obsession. These stories have many similarities such as the fact that men keep them isolated from the rest of the world, and both stories happen in times where men could control womens lives. However, they also have their differences. Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper in 1890 while Faulkner wrote A Rose for Emily in 1929. The narrator becomes obsessed with the wallpaper while Emily becomes obsessed with not being alone in life. The narrators obsession with being free from her husbands control causes her to go mad and defeat her husband. Emilys obsession with not wanting to be alone causes her to go crazy and kill Homer. The stories relate to each other in very many ways, but it is very clear that there are a lot more differences than similarities. Works Cited Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. Literature: Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gloria. Pearson Longman. 30-36. Print. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gloria. Pearson Longman. 468-478. Showalter, Elaine. Killing the Angel in the House: The Autonomy of Women Writers. The Antioch Review 50. 50th Anniversary (1992): 208-220. JSTOR. Web. 9 Dec. 2018.

The Complicated Relationship Between The Black And White...

The Complicated Relationship between the Black and White Americans Amiri Baraka’s play the â€Å"Dutchman† is a portrayal about the interactions between the two major characters Lula and Clay. The two came from different races, whereas Clay is a twenty year old African American, while Lula on her thirties is a white woman. It all started when Lula had the courage to approach Clay, accusing the latter intent of staring from the window of a train. In their conversation, it demonstrates how Lula was trying to manipulate the situation, depicting the relationship between the two races and the problem about stereotyping. In the play, Lula first appeared as a beautiful and attractive white woman with an apple at her hand (Baraka, 1). Somehow, if her character will be interpreted based on Biblical teaching, it appears that she is more like a temptress like Eve. Although, Lula only met Clay for the first time, but she acted like knowing everything about the latter. 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Anselm’s Monologion Free Essays

Anselm’s Monologion is at first a detailed expansion of his more famous ontology – the proof of the existence of God – as expressed elsewhere. In this proof God is first equated with the most perfect being, and then it is demonstrated that such a being necessarily exists. The Monologion is concerned more with the nature of the most perfect being, and what else can be predicated about it, in relation to itself, and to created beings. We will write a custom essay sample on Anselm’s Monologion or any similar topic only for you Order Now The same line of argument is followed, where the oneness and the perfection of the Supreme Being are emphasized, but after a point we notice that the effort is diverted into explaining the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, so that God is said to be three persons in one substance, and yet indivisibly one. It needs to be remembered that Anselm does not attempt to ‘prove’ the doctrine of the Trinity. Therefore the latter part of the Monologion is really persuasive rather than demonstrative. The aim is to convince us of the reasonableness of the doctrine of the Trinity. It will be instructive to recall Anselm’s ontology here. In order to divert any suspicion of sophism, Anselm introduces the argument as taking place in the head of a fool. This fool denies the existence of a Supreme and Perfect Being. But when he tries to imagine something of the kind in his head, he cannot. Whatever great thing he imagines, it is not final, because the mind soars inexorably past it and imagines something even greater. The mind tries to grasp perfection, but cannot do so. Anselm argues that if there were no perfect being, then the mind chases after nothing, which cannot be so. So there must be a thing called Perfection, at least as an idea. Next he supposes the case where the Perfection is only in the mind and not in reality. If this were the case then it would not be the most perfect thing, because being only in the mind, the mind would then try to imagine something even greater than it. Therefore the Perfect Being has real existence. The Monologion opens with a variation on this ontology, postulating that all things that are good, or great, or virtuous in any way, are so due to the goodness, greatness or virtue of the Supreme Being, which must necessarily exist as the abode or perfection and being whereby everything else derives its qualities and its existence. It then tries to fix the nature of this Supreme Being, and concludes that whatever qualities it possesses it does so by itself, from itself, and through itself. And at the same time all created beings possess their qualities and their existence by, from and through the Supreme Being. So that a person can be said to be just, which implies a comparison. He is just because he has more justice in him then the next person. But with God there is no comparison, so that He is Justice itself. He is said to exist in all places and in all times, and this sense exists in the truest sense. In comparison all created being can be said not to exist at all, and at best that they exist in a limited sense. They are mutable, so that whatever existence they have is fleeting – nothing is ever what it was a moment ago. Therefore, the Supreme Being not only brings them into existence, but sustains their existence too. These are things demonstrated in the first part of the Monologion, and all the arguments follow the same pattern as in the ontology, i. e. it employs the oneness and perfection of God. But then Anselm comes to consider the Expression of the Supreme Being. All created existence is but a manifestation of the Expression. We must next consider whether this Expression is also a creature. But it cannot be so, because all creatures come to existence through the Expression, and the Expression cannot come into being through itself. If it is not a creature then it can only consubstantial with the Supreme Being. Here it is established that the Expression of the Supreme Being cannot be anything distinct from it. It must therefore be sufficient in itself, and need not depend of created beings, having existence before creating things came into being, and even after the final dissolution of things. So we need to find a way to describe the Expression to relation to God alone. Anselm describes it as the understanding of God. It can be seen as a means by which God comes to understand Himself. It is plain that God cannot be in the dark about his own nature, says Anselm, and he points out that even the human mind understands itself. The mind is conscious of itself, can remember itself, can reason with itself. This is but the mind understanding itself. If the mind can understand itself to some extent, there is no doubt that the Supreme Being understands itself, and does so not partially, but wholly. It is indeed the aspect we know as divine wisdom. The next step is to equate the Expression with the Word. In truth, an analogy is here being drawn between â€Å"words†, which are the units of human language, and the essence of expression. In a word is the image of the thing as we sense it. Therefore, in words are the expressions of all things, and as words all things are represented in the human mind. There are, no doubt, other carriers of expression, for example, pictures, sculptures, tastes, smells, etc. But the word is the purest and most powerful medium. It is the building block of language, and thus is the bearer of culture and civilization. We have many words, and these exist so that all things may be represented in the mind, and even then it is inadequate to bring the whole diverse splendor of the universe to us. Anselm asks the question whether the divine expression employs many words. But quickly demonstrates that such diversity would detract from the perfection of the divine expression. If the Expression is one, and the word is made consubstantial to it, then the word is also one, and this is the Word. It is the supreme image of the divine, but it also forms an identity with the divine. From it is derived all other words, and indeed all other images. Since all things are created in the image of the divine, the Word is indeed the source of all Creation. Anselm thus far has arrived at the Biblical assertion, as found in the Gospel of John: â€Å"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God† (John 1:1). Anselm points out a possible difficulty at this point. If it is true that the Word brings all things into existence in the manner of lending to them its own image, then it must be somehow like the things which are created, being in its own image. He considers the three mutually exhaustive cases. Either the likeness is (1) exact, (2) partial, or (3) non-existent. It is obvious that there cannot be an exact likeness, because created things are mutable, and the Word is not. A partial likeness implies that some aspects of the creating being do not derive from the Word, which is also plainly false. If there no likeness at all then there is no creation either. Anselm suggests that we come over this difficulty by using the comparison the other way. This means that we should compare created beings to the Word, and not the other way round. All created things must compare to the Word is some degree. And the degree to which they do compare is the degree of their existence. To elaborate on the theme of ‘degrees of existence’, Anselm asks us to consider the gradated nature of all created things. The rational human mind is certainly superior to the sensual human body; the sensual animals are certainly superior to the non-sensual plants; the sentient plants are superior to the non-sentient and material substances. Each created being is an effulgence of the Word, and it must necessarily be so, because the Word is the expression of the divine. But there seems to be a gradation that rises to make the image of the divine truer and truer. When we arrive at the rational human mind we have self-reflexive understanding, which is an attribute we apply properly only to the divine mind. But then, human reason does not comprehend itself finally, and neither can it come to an understanding of what it sees as God and the universe. On the other hand, the Spirit that is God comprehends itself fully, and this through the means of the Word. Therefore we must conclude that the human mind is an effulgence of the Word, but it is not the Word itself. Through a multiplicity of ‘words’ the human mind can grapple with the infinite expanse that it finds before it, and can come to know of the existence of the Word, thus of God, though it cannot know the Word itself. We may assert that the rational mind is the greatest among all created things, and therefore bears the greatest likeness with the Word, and consequently possess more reality that anything else in the phenomenal world. Though none can deny that it is a created, and thus limited thing. This much Anselm attempts to prove. Much of the latter part of the Monologion is not proof but suggestion. The starting point of such suggestion is when Anselm insists that the Expression be construed as something distinct from the Supreme Being. Having already proved that there cannot be any distinction, Anselm seems to be taking liberties now. He wants to be reasonable instead of rational. It is as if he is encountering God as a person instead of a matter of logic. In the sense that we would not mistake the expression of a person with the person himself, so Anselm describes the Word as distinct from the Supreme Being, And further on he will give the description a more personal character by saying that the Word in begotten by the Supreme Being in the way that the son is begotten of the father. He is at pains to point out, though, that it is an â€Å"ineffable plurality. To be sure, ineffable—because although necessity compels that they be two, what two they are cannot at all be expressed† (Anselm 53). In the end it is an article of faith that he is espousing. To think in this way is to gain a glimpse into the deepest mysteries of the divine, and this is what increases devotion and strengthens faith. Once we admit two distinct beings in God, there issues by necessity a third, with is Love, which is that by which the Son is united with Father and the Father with the Son. This is the doctrine of the Trinity, that which Anselm has been aiming at from the beginning. We draw the following conclusion. In the Monologion it is Anselm’s task to prove the existence of God and to elaborate on the perfection of His nature. The proofs that he provides for the existence and perfection of God are thorough and irrefutable. He elaborates on the Expression of God as the source of all created existence. But even though he establishes that, in a strictly logical sense, we cannot apply predicates to God, he nevertheless goes on espouse the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. He is careful to point out that this latter assertion is not a proof, but is rather the most reasonable predicate that can be applied to God. How to cite Anselm’s Monologion, Papers