“A Rose for Emily” and “The story of an hour” are two famous stories that narrate in different ways how these two women went through depression. “A Rose for Emily” was written for William Faulkner, published in 1930. The story begins with the funeral of town recluse and eccentric, Emily Grierson. The town views her funeral as an obligation and a bit of a chore. Also, Emily’s isolation is another persistent theme. The town watches her but also leaves her alone. She is extremely isolated and yet, every action is also put under a microscope by her neighbors.
Her behavior under this, contributes further to her isolation, and simultaneously contributes to the curiosity that prevents the town from setting her free. “The Story of an Hour” is a tale written by Kate Chopin in 1994 and it follows Louise Mallard as she deals with the news of her husband Brently’s death. Louise is informed of Brently’s tragic death in a railroad disaster by a close friend of his, Richards, and reacts with immediate grief. Louise heads to her room, and gradually comes to the realization that she is happy that her husband died. Later, she heads back downstairs, only to witness Brently coming home, and she dies of shock at the sight, due to complications of her heart disease.
So, by writing these stories, the writer wants to show us that although the situations they pass through, are different, the theme of death as a solution for their conflicts is presented nowadays.
The stories of Kate Chopin and William Faulkner share a similar theme and conflict in a different way. Both protagonists are women trapped in toxic marriages, a society that sees marriage as something so important for a woman and both face death, but deal with it in opposite ways. When it comes to dealing with death and what being married involves Miss Emily and Mrs. Mallard couldn’t be more different. Where one is faced with a situation that gives her joy and hope about the future, the other finds depression and holds on to the past. They both end their lives tragically.
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In both stories, unhappy relationships and oppression from male figures are presented, Emily is condemned by her father to not marry, and Mrs. Mallard is forced to be in a marriage that doesn’t fulfills her desires of freedom. In “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard feels tied to her husband, and not because of lack of love from him but because she doesn’t feel free in that marriage. When Mrs. Mallard realizes that she no longer will have a husband she can´t help but think “free, free, free!” (Chopin 180), which leads her to an immense joy she can’t control.
Contrary to Mrs. Mallard, Emily had a partner that didn’t want to be with her and wasn’t even attracted to women. In “A Rose for Emily”, Homer Barron, the supposedly boyfriend of Emily, “Homer himself had remarked-he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks´ Club-that he was not a marrying man” (Faulkner 34). He didn’t love her, and she couldn’t accept that, she wanted him to be with her no matter what. Although Mrs. Mallard wasn’t in a codependent relationship, she depends on him on other things according to the society back then, which thought a woman needed a man, and was forced to be in that situation because of the oppressive era she lived in.
Emily did depend on Homer emotionally and that led her to hurt him and herself. Both women were dependent of a male figure, Mrs. Mallard didn’t want it to be that way and Emily wasn’t aware of how much codependency she had on Homer.
Both, Emily and Mrs. Mallard end up death and experience the death of their partners. Even though Mrs. Mallard’s husband isn’t dead, for a moment it’s like he was because that’s what his wife thought, and she goes through all this process of accepting the death of a loved one. Furthermore, they both end up dead, Mrs. Mallard when she realizes her expectations of freedom will finally be completed, and Emily at the peak of her depression.
The way in which the protagonists of the stories deal with the death of a loved one is distant to be similar. When Mrs. Mallard is told her husband is dead, she gets excited. A moment that was supposed to be sad for her, “But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them with welcome.” (Chopin 180)
Opposite to Mrs. Mallard, Emily sees the death of her husband as an opportunity to stay with him always, even if he doesn’t love her like she does love him. We can notice how Emily wanted Homer to stay with her so badly when Homer´s body is found and is proved that she slept with the dead body. “Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.” (Faulkner 36)
Now, both women had different motives to do or think what they did. Emily wanted her husband death so he wouldn’t leave her like her father did when he died.
She lived always holding on to the past and we can prove this by the way she faced the different struggles she was put through, “After her father´s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people saw her at all.” (Faulkner 31) On the other hand, when Mrs. Mallard thought of her husband’s death she couldn’t help but think about her future days with excitement and hope. “Spring days, and summer days, and all sort of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long.” (Chopin 180) Through this passage we can see how the thoughts of a long-desired freedom fill the mind of Mrs. Mallard which later leads her to a killing joy, opposite to Emily whose sadness led her to death.
