Ivan Ilych's Boring Life

Narrative of The Yellow Wallpaper

     Reading "The Yellow Wallpaper" from a 1st person narrative is more interesting to me than from any other perspective. I like it more because I get a better understanding of the situation(s) in the story. I like knowing what the main character is thinking and what she observes around her. If it was told from another perspective maybe the audience would have thought that her husband was abusive and unloving. Even though you get to read what the main character is thinking, the audience can still notice if something is off about the character(s) as well. For instance we know in the beginning that she hates the yellow wallpaper but as she stays in the room longer she starts to like and become attached to the wallpaper. The character might be saying one thing but we remember what she was also thinking earlier. Slowly the audience gets to see how she slowly becomes crazy while she remains in denial.

 

Significance of time in "A Rose for Emily"

      From what I understand, roses are a symbol of time in stories. This is the same case for "A Rose for Emily". Roses die pretty quickly if not taken care of properly. However a rose can also be preserved. I believe the towns people in the story tried to do this with Emily. Since she was the last symbol of the old school way of life, they wanted to preserve her in a sense and in doing so they covered up her mistakes. She has stayed the same over time while her environment around her is progressing and changing quickly. As you can tell, Emily does not handle change very well. This is probably also why she kills Homer. She wanted to preserve him and the good times they had rather than allow time to take its course. I am assuming that the narrator is one of the towns people who observed her life and/or one of the people who sent the tax papers to her. So you get an observers point of view of what happened to her after her father passed to the date of her death. Some areas are left open but the narrator hints at what happens to her over time. Time and change is inevitable. As much as the towns people, and even Emily, tried to stop time, the change was inevitable and that is what I think William Faulkner tried to express in this story.