Janie begins by telling Phoeby about her grandmother, Nanny, who raised her. They were poor, but Nanny wanted the best for her granddaughter and finally persuaded her to marry a relatively wealthy owner of a farm named Logan Killicks. Logan was much older than Janie and was not romantic or sentimental. He tried to get Janie to work on his farm but she could not be content with such a dull and oppressive partner. One afternoon a smooth-talking man named Joe Starks rambles by the farm and engages Janie in conversation. He has big plans for the small amount of money he’s saved and is heading to the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida (where Janie is returning to at the beginning of the story) to make his fortune. Already unhappy with her older husband who treats her more like a mule than an intelligent woman, Janie is susceptible to Joe (who she begins calling “Jody” for the rest of the novel) and his idealism and after a brief couple of weeks of clandestine courtship, the two decide to run away and marry.

Eatonville is not the idealistic place Janie imagined and although she is a bit disappointed to find that the houses look like slave shacks, her new husband sees potential. After only a short time in town, he becomes the mayor (since there wasn’t one to begin with) and sets up a successful shop in town. Although the couple has obtained some degree of material success, before long Janie begins feeling unhappy about her new life. Her husband is quite controlling and he forces her to wear her beautiful straight hair up in a dirty rag while she’s working at the store out of jealousy. As it speaks to some of the major themes in “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, while she wants to be a vital part of the community, Jody does not want her to be one of the “common” people in town and prefers to keep her on a shelf—as a showpiece to his success. Although the reader is aware that Janie is desperately unhappy, she never speaks out against her husband and silently endures his controlling presence for some time.

After a twenty-year marriage, Janie’s unhappiness is almost completely unbearable. The couple is by far the wealthiest in the area and many are envious of Janie, especially since she’s still maintained her great beauty. Her husband, however, is growing ill and in order to distract his wife from his weakening condition, he chooses to make her feel terrible about her own looks. One day, at the town store which the couple runs, Jody makes a malicious comment about Janie’s failing looks. Surprisingly, Janie bites back and says that Jody is hideous and impotent, which causes him to beat her. Between this event and the years of sadness, it is clear that the marriage is in shambles. Jody’s condition worsens and he refuses to see Janie or eat any of her cooking. Eventually, she goes to see him on his deathbed. Instead of acting calmly and with forgiveness, she lets loose all of the fury and rage she’s bottled up over the years. He begs her to stop but she continues telling him how he never appreciated her for who she was. During her speech against him, he dies.

Upon her husband’s death, Janie finally frees free. She burns the rags she’s had to wear over her hair and although she does try to appear as though she’s sad, she loves her new independence. Suitors come calling eventually but Janie, who still runs the store, does not allow any of them to get too close to her. After her last two marriages, she sees that men are not the answer to her search for a sense of self and is hesitant to make the same mistake again. She also realizes that the values instilled in her by her grandmother about finding a man that is stable and financially secure are flawed—that there is far more to happiness than security. Janie is able to enjoy her independence until a stranger stops into the store named Tea Cake.

Janie and Tea Cake begin by playing checkers and she treasures every moment she spends with him because he actually encourages her to speak her mind and develop her own voice. Although he has a habit of disappearing for several days on end, she nonetheless agrees to sell the store and move away with him to the Everglades. The people in town think she is foolish and that the man is just after her money and even the reader thinks this after the two are married and he steals two hundred dollars from her and disappears for a few days. He comes back, apologizes, and quickly wins the money back from gambling and the two agree to share everything with one another.

The couple is very happy in the Everglades and they entertain many friends. Tea Cake is still a free spirit, but Janie accepts this and even seems to feed off of it. Her voice is much more prominent in the novel and it is clear that she’s come into her own. After they have been married for a couple of years, however, a severe hurricane strikes and they are forced to flee. Caught up in the wild waters, Tea Cake wrestles with a dog to save Janie’s life and is bitten on the cheek. Although they do not know it until later, Tea Cake has contracted rabies, which explains his illness. After a few days, Tea Cake’s condition worsens and begins infecting his mind. One night, convinced that Janie is cheating on him, he pulls a gun on her. Unable to do anything else, she fires back to save her own life, killing Tea Cake. The same day she is put on trial with a jury comprised of all whites. Surprisingly (given the time period of the novel) she is found not guilty and returns home where the novel begins. She feels peaceful, despite all that’s happened, because she feels an innate sense of union with Tea Cake.

If you are writing about this novel, there are any number of interesting themes you could discuss. For instance, note that there are no real antagonists (bad guys) in this novel. Even the oppressive Jody is not “evil” per se, he just has a character flaw that makes him blind to the ways in which he might hurt others. What replaces the traditional antagonist, however, is the environmental forces that shape and contort the characters’ lives. Thinking about this should help you formulate a thesis based on this fact. It is also interesting that Janie’s search for her identity is clearly visible in her language and use of silence. By gauging her relationship with language throughout the text, it is not difficult to see her development. In order to examine this more closely, you’ll want to think about how the mode of narration changes throughout the course of the novel. Aside from these, there is always the option of the old stand-by “role of women” theme that always seems to get assigned. Use the quotes below to help you build your thesis and good luck.

Other articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include The Role of Oppression in “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston •   Comparison of Themes in “A Rose for Emily” “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Sweat”   •  American Literature in Historical Context : 1865 to Roosevelt  • American History Since 1865: Major Events and Trends  •  Realism in American Literature

Diagnosing a mental illness is often a challenging task, and one that implies a great deal of responsibility on the part of the mental health professional who assesses the patient and determines the diagnosis (American Psychiatric Association 5). Among the numerous variables that a clinician considers are the patient’s prior history. In the case of Miss Emily, an analysis of the setting and the other characters in the story, as well as an examination of some of the themes in “A Rose for Emily” and  especially incidents involving Miss Emily’s father, helps the reader to understand the particular pressures with which Emily was trying to cope and how, by extension, she might have developed schizophrenia. Miss Emily was from a family of great stature and wealth in their small Southern community, and Miss Emily had always been burdened with the great expectations that others had of her. Her community viewed her as having a “hereditary obligation” (Faulkner 2160) to maintain certain traditions, traditions that had been established generations before her. Her father, charged with transmitting these traditions and values to Miss Emily, was rigid in reinforcing these expectations, and in the words of the narrator, the father was a man who had “thwarted her woman’s life so many times” (Faulkner 2164). Just one example of his behavior was that he drove all of Miss Emily’s suitors away because none were perceived as good enough for her. As a result, she never married.

Despite his oppressiveness, it is when her father dies that the reader begins to observe the acceleration of Miss Emily’s mental decline. While this phenomenon may seem paradoxical, it is not at all uncommon. When the ill individual suddenly no longer has to cope with managing external stressors, their defenses yield completely and they succumb to the psychotic symptoms that have been latent (Staton 275). The narrator observes that after her father’s death and her subsequent breakdown, Miss Emily was “sick for a long time,” though he does not offer more specific details as to the type of illness that she suffers (Faulkner 2162). It is also at this time that Miss Emily begins to avoid contact with others and other psychotic symptoms become evident. Immediately after the death of her father, the ladies of the town come to Miss Emily’s home to offer their condolences, and they observe that she had “no trace of grief on her face” (Faulkner 2162). The inability to either feel or demonstrate appropriate affect, or emotion, that is congruent to a particular situation is one of the classic symptoms of schizophrenia (American Psychiatric Association 147). Perhaps more tellingly, Miss Emily insisted to the visitors that “her father was not dead” (Faulkner 2162). For this reason, she would not permit his body to be removed until “she broke down” and the townspeople removed the body quickly before she could protest (Faulkner 2162).

Despite this and other evidence that Miss Emily is not emotionally or mentally well, the townspeople persist in enabling her to maintain her delusions. In fact, their denial is almost as pathological as Miss Emily’s own symptoms. The townspeople avoid confronting Miss Emily about any important concerns, such as the terrible smell that is emanating from her home, which itself is becoming more “detached, superseded, and forbidding” (Stone 87) every day. While the newer generation of townspeople advocates addressing the matter with Miss Emily directly, Judge Stevens responds to this suggestion in a rage, saying, in one of theimportant quotes from “A Rose for Emily” “Dammit, sir…will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?”, as if the smell was merely a body odor rather than a pervasive stench (Faulkner 2162). The younger generation relents, and the men responsible for such local concerns sneak into Miss Emily’s basement surreptitiously to spread lime as an effort to eliminate the odor.

Meanwhile, as the reader will soon learn, Miss Emily has retreated entirely into a world of delusion and fantasy. At first, Miss Emily has few callers, and those townspeople who dare to visit her “were not received” (Faulkner 2161). Then, there is a period where she withdraws from society altogether, and “From that time on her front door remained closed” (Faulkner 2164). The changes that the narrator reports the townspeople having observed the time the townspeople “next saw Miss Emily” also hint at symptoms of advanced psychosis. Miss Emily “had grown fat and her hair was turning gray” (Faulkner 2164). This failure to attend to her personal appearance and to perform what mental health practitioners call the “tasks of daily living”—such as hygiene and grooming—also demonstrate severe deficits in the area of “social/occupational functioning,” which is one of the criteria for the diagnosis of schizophrenia (American Psychiatric Association 147). At this point, Miss Emily is totally unable to relate to other people in an appropriate manner. Although her contact with others is limited, when she is forced to interact socially she is irrational and inappropriate, yet another symptom of schizophrenia (American Psychiatric Association 147). The narrator reports one episode that is particularly telling: When the town got mailboxes, “Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them” (Faulkner 2165).

There are other episodes sprinkled throughout the story that indicate Miss Emily’s compromised mental state. Early in the story, before the extent of her symptoms has become clear to the reader, the narrator relates an episode in which Miss Emily appears before town officials to insist that she does not owe taxes. She repeats several times that she has “no taxes in Jefferson” and that the county’s Board of Aldermen could speak with Colonel Sartoris if they felt otherwise (Faulkner 2161). It is not the fact that she said this that hints at her psychosis. Rather, it is her insistence against the facts that they present and her refusal to listen to aldermen at all that makes her more than just a stubborn town eccentric. There are two other episodes that are equally telling. When Miss Emily goes to the pharmacy to buy poison, she is described as lacking in affect and appears to be paranoid, withholding information from the pharmacist about the reason for her request. Once again, the pharmacist, representing the town as a whole, finds this request odd, but does not challenge it. After all, Miss Emily is a special woman, “the last of a proud line,” (Stone 88), and as such, she is unassailable. The other important episode, besides the obvious psychotic act of sleeping with a corpse, involves Miss Emily’s purchases of items for the man that the town believes is her betrothed, but who is already presumably dead and decaying in Miss Emily’s bed. Indeed, when the townspeople kick down the bedroom door years later, the narrator describes a tableau that is “decked and furnished as for a bridal” but frozen in time and covered with dust and tarnish (Faulkner 2165). Clearly, Miss Emily’s grasp on reality had slipped completely.

If one agrees that Miss Emily was schizophrenic, then naturally one might want to understand the influences that precipitated her illness. Kinney has argued that Miss Emily’s delusions, especially about her father’s death, develop as a defense mechanism, for the death of her father represents “the death of the old order and of herself as well” (94). Staton adds that “Having been consumed by her father [figuratively], Emily in turn feeds off Homer….She has taken into herself the violence in him which thwarted her and has reenacted it….” (275). Some feminist critics interpret Miss Emily’s illness differently. Appleton Aguilar, for instance, contends that Miss Emily “insists on maintaining her own existence, which the townspeople continually refuse to allow as they wish her to sustain her position as icon and memorial to the antebellum South” (30). While Miss Emily’s gender and her place, both literally and figuratively, certainly exacerbate and may have even caused her condition, there is far too much textual evidence to support the counterargument. Miss Emily is not merely trying to assert an independent existence; rather, she has never been able to do so and for that reason she has developed symptoms of schizophrenia as a maladaptive coping mechanism. Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a short story that is, at its heart, a tale about the pressures of society and the ways in which they can wear people down. Miss Emily lacked adaptive coping skills to help her manage substantial stressors, and for this reason, she was vulnerable to the onset of mental illness.

Other articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include : Comparison of Themes in “A Rose for Emily” “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Sweat”    and   The Sound and the Fury: Character Analysis of Dilsey

Works Cited

American Psychiatric Association. Quick Reference to the Diagnostic Criteria from DSM-IV. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 1994.

Appleton Aguiar, Sarah. The Bitch if Back: Wicked Women in Literature. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001.

Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” In The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. 2160-2166. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.

Kinney, Arthur F. Faulkner’s Narrative Poetics: Style as Vision. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.

Staton, Shirley F. Literary Theories in Praxis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987.

Stone, Edward. A Certain Morbidness: A View of American Literature. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969.

Part of Gilman’s technique in expressing her political theme in The Yellow Wallpaper is centered in her use narration. The author has created a narrator who is not entirely reliable yet is prone to making very potent statements about her situation as an oppressed woman. Although she peppers her complaints about feeling trapped and unhappy with admissions that it all might be because of her nervous condition (as opposed to a legitimate sense of oppression by her husband) it is nearly impossible for the reader to ignore the fact that it might be her husband’s treatment of her that is the problem. For instance, Gilman’s narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper tends to make seemingly innocent remarks such as, “John laughs at me, if course, but one expects that in marriage” (833) and “he is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (834). While such “offhand” comments about the nature of her relationship and marriage might not be taken seriously in another more comedic context, the narrator’s growing madness makes these statements about John’s habit of being overprotective and oppressive impossible to shrug off. By creating a character whose narration becomes increasingly out of touch and mad, the narrator’s statements that follow the more innocent claims discussed above are to be taken more seriously. For instance, just after one of her more innocent-sounding remarks about marriage, the narrator states in one of the important quotes from The Yellow Wallpaper, “I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition” (833). Although she says it is probably due to her condition, the reader cannot help but wonder why, only a few paragraphs later, she reveals that despite her love for writing, “He hates to have me write a word” (834). This narrator is clearly feeling trapped in a marriage that does not allow her freedom. Meanwhile, as a man, her husband is free to come and go. This inability for her to express herself in a meaningful way eventually leads her to associate herself with the woman in the wallpaper who looks to be, like the narrator, behind bars or in a cage.

As this thesis statement for The Yellow Wallpaper suggests, aside from creating a narrator that reveals the complex dynamics of female oppression, she also employs symbolism to further reveal and enhance her message. For instance, given the fact that the narrator feels trapped by both her husband and surroundings, it is not farfetched to assume that the woman she sees behind the wallpaper is a symbol of herself and the Victorian women like her. In The Yellow Wallpaper Gilman seems to go out of her way to express the symbolic relationship between the real and wallpaper woman. Much like the main character, the wallpaper woman is described as “all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern — it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads” (837). In some senses, the pattern is a symbol for the pattern of the woman’s oppression in that she can’t get out of her “cage” because her husband is keeping everything about her suppressed. The many heads can be seen as a symbol of all the things the woman wants to do, She wishes she could write and have guests over, but she can’t and instead, the woman in the wallpaper has all these “heads” or ideas of what she wants to do. Conversely, these heads could also represent the many male influences who are constantly interfering with her sense of freedom, most notably her husband. At the tragic conclusion of the story, it is significant that she exclaims, “I’ve got out at last…in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back” (844). Her final words, if the assessments of the symbols are correct, mean that it is only through a final devastating act that she can be free from the oppression. She has escaped for good and the “paper” she has pulled off can serve as yet another symbol for the “ties” that have, until this point, kept her bound.

Although the ending of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is somewhat ambiguous, it appears that the narrator has killed herself. While it could easily be argued that she did this simply because she was mentally disturbed, there are far too many statements made by Gilman’s narrator about the oppression of a woman for this to be an easy argument. By creating a narrator that the reader can view either way, Gilman forces the reader to read into all of the narrator’s words more closely than he or she might otherwise do. As a result, it becomes clear that the narrator’s unhappiness seems directly linked to the fact that she is being treated like a child and is not allowed to leave her cage. If the reader of The Yellow Wallpaper has any doubt about this, the symbol of the woman behind the wallpaper should serve as convincing evidence, especially given the story’s ending. In sum, by presenting a carefully constructed narrator and offering clues in the form of symbols, the reader is more inclined to see The Yellow Wallpaperas a story with more political slant than one simply about mental illness.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Volume C. W.W. Norton, New York: 2002.

Other essays and articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include :   Comparison of Themes in “A Rose for Emily” “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Sweat”   •  American Literature in Historical Context : 1865 to Roosevelt  •   Realism in American Literature  •   Psychological Character Analysis of Miss Emily in “A Rose for Emily” by Faulkner

Delia is quite angry because her husband purposefully made it look like a snake and she scolds him. He does not seem concerned with her feelings and yells at her because she has white people’s clothes in the house, something which he’s told her he doesn’t like. She tries to ignore him as he kicks the neat pile she’d made all over. He is bound and determined to fight with her and keeps trying to provoke her with his words. Suddenly, tired of his verbal abuse, she screams about how hard she’s been working and picks up an iron skillet from the stove as if to strike him. He is taken aback by his wife’s actions, especially since she usually just bottled up her anger. As the narrator states in one of the important quotes from “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston, “It cowed him and he did not strike her as he usually did.” From this point, it is clear that he is also physically abusive toward her and this makes her rebellious action even more surprising.

Sykes finally leaves his wife alone to ponder her unhappy life and marriage. He is sleeping with another woman, Bertha, and he spends all of her hard-earned money buying her trite gifts. All that keeps her happy is the prospect of going to church and her well-maintained but small house. He comes back in around dawn and steals the covers before a new scene begins. It is clear that this is a troubled household and that Delia’s patience with her abusive husband is going to have to have some kind of resolution. In an instance of foreshadowing, she thinking, “Oh well, whatever goes over the Devil’s back, is got to come under his belly” which means that she knows eventually Skyes will get what’s coming to him.

The previous scene is cut off and the reader sees that some time has gone by. Delia sets out to do her washing and passes by a group of men sitting at a store. The tone and focus of “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston changes for a while as the men comment on how pretty Delia used to be and how it’s such a shame that she’s beaten so often and lost her good looks. They talk about Syke’s behavior with the Bertha woman and generally frown upon him, with one saying, “There oughter be a law about him… He ain’t fit tuh carry guts tuh a bear.” Clearly the whole town seems to have a negative reaction against Sykes and so too does the reader by this point. On her way back, Delia sees Sykes out front of Bertha’s telling her that he will buy her whatever she wants. As the narrator states, “It pleased him for Delia to see.”

More time passes and the narrator lets us know that Bertha has been in town for three months and that, as stated in one of the important quotes from “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston, “Delia and Sykes fought all the time now with no peaceful interludes. They slept and ate in silence. Two or three times Delia had attempted a timid friendliness, but she was repulsed each time. It was plain that the breaches must remain agape. One afternoon, Sykes comes home with a box and tells Delia to look inside. Nestled within the box is a giant rattlesnake that Dykes caught. He refuses to get rid of it, even though it is driving Delia mad. Although it had just had a large meal when Sykes caught it, it begins to grow hungry again and always rattles around, scaring Delia to death. One night, however, Delia comes home to find that the snake is loose. She is able to get out of the house and wait and sees her husband come home. He makes a lot of noise in the kitchen and is bitten by the snake. Instead of helping him, however, Delia simply lets him die.

The reader can speculate on whether or not Delia was too afraid to move to get help for her husband, but it is the general consensus that she purposefully let him die. While you could argue both, if you are going to contend that she was just afraid, you’d better take a closer look at the text before trying to defend your point.

Other articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include The Role of Oppression in “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston •   Comparison of Themes in “A Rose for Emily” “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Sweat”   •   Analysis and Summary of “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hursto  •   American Literature in Historical Context : 1865 to Roosevelt  •   American History Since 1865: Major Events and Trends  •  Realism in American Literature

In “The Sound and the Fury” by Faulkner, Benjy is always living moment to moment and reliant on order and sameness that is at least in part, provided by Dilsey and Quentin also wishes to maintain a particular kind of order according to strict codes of behavior that Dilsey is able to provide. Jason is least affected by Dilsey’s efforts and Caddy is beyond Dilsey’s range of service, but in general, as this character analysis of Dilsey in ‘The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner suggests, he stands in as Mrs. Compton since she is the only true mother figure in the novel. She is able to put aside her own personal concerns and focus on raising the children and she is the only character that is able to look past her own self and desires in order to do what is best for others.

In “The Sound and the Fury” by Faulkner Benjy experiences the presence of Dilsey in much the same way he does his siblings and other minor characters—through immediate sensation. Dilsey takes the place of his mother and if it were not for Caddy’s loving influence and the caretaking role of Dilsey, it is reasonable to suggest that he might be reduced to crying all of the time. Dilsey’s role can be better felt in the other narrator’s lives as they are able to rationalize and relate her presence far better than the mentally handicapped Benjy. For example, although Quentin does not often mention Dilsey, she is the symbol of strength and the face he associates with being home. Unlike his careless and selfish mother, it is Dilsey who nurtured Quentin and the other children and it is Dilsey’s face he thinks of in the moments leading up to his suicide. As he contemplates his act, the memory of Dilsey floods his mind and for a moment, it seems that this is the only time he feels guilty or saddened by his impending suicide. In one of the important quotes from “The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner, he wistfully states, “I didn’t know that I really had missed Roskus and Dilsey and them until that morning in Virginia” (86) although the reader is quite certain that it is too late for the presence of Dilsey to change his mind. As the thesis statement for “The Sound and the Fury” by Faulkner and this character analysis of Dilsey states, throughout the novel Quentin is obsessed with ideals of Southern honor and duty and it seems reasonable to speculate that to Quentin, Dilsey is the one part of his former life that upheld these notions, even if this is not immediately clear. She is resolute, caring, strong, and religious and cared more for the crumbling family than Mr. or Mrs. Compton. This devotion is what Quentin seemed to feel was most lacking and is part of what drove him to suicide.

While Quentin and Benjy were visibly affected by Dilsey’s presence, Jason attempted to command her and would not listen to her nor offer her the respect she deserved. Throughout The Sound and the Fury he is often represented as being cruel and unable to maintain friendly relations with anyone, so in some ways this is not surprising. Instead of giving up on Jason, however, Dilsey persists as she tries to keep the family strong (even though she sees it falling apart.) She does not allow Jason to walk all over her and does not spare him her criticism. In this way, she offers a voice to many reader’s feelings such as when she scolds Jason after Miss Quentin has run off and broken a window, saying, “en I wouldn’t blame her none ef she did… wid you naggin at her all de blessed time you in de house” (278). In William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury Jason is too hard-hearted to consider what she says, but at this crucial point in the novel her presence is even more important because it is clear the family is falling into ruin. Her thoughts about the family echo the reader’s perceptions again as Jason goes to seek out Miss Quentin. “While she stood there the clock above the cupboard struck ten times. ‘One o’clock,’ she said aloud, ‘Jason ain’t comin home. Ise seed de first en de last,’ she said, looking at the cold stove, ‘I seed de first en de last.” (375). Despite all of her hard work she truly does recognize the fall of the family and by this point is helpless to stop it.

At the end of the novel The Sound and the Fury, the narrator’s physical description of Dilsey comments on her status as the hero of the text. “She had been a big woman once but now her skeleton rose, draped loosely in an unpadded skin that tightened again upon a paunch almost dropsical, as though muscle and tissue had been courage or fortitude which the days or the years had consumed until only the indomitable skeleton was left rising like a ruin or a landmark above the somnolent and impervious guts…” (330-331). The fact that she has gone from voluptuous to a mere skeleton makes us see how she has gone from the nurturer and mother figure to the old tired woman. Interestingly, she has an “indomitable skeleton” which tells us that even though she has been metaphorically “sucked dry” her foundation—her skeleton—remains firm at the end of The Sound and the Fury.

Other essays and articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include : Psychological Character Analysis of Miss Emily in “A Rose for Emily” by Faulkner  •  American Literature in Historical Context : 1865 to Roosevelt  •  Comparison of Themes in “A Rose for Emily” “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Sweat”

These three female characters in “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner are all torn between love and hate and there doesn’t seem to be a gray area. Perhaps that is what makes these stories so compelling, that it’s hard to determine emotion with any certainty. One thing that is clear is the way male dominance and repression has an effect on these “back and forth” feelings of love and hate. All of these female main characters seem to want to love the men that had so much control over them, but in the end, they snap under the enormous emotional weight of this male repression.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat”, Sykes, the main character’s husband is the biggest dominating influence in her life. Despite the fact that she is always working to sustain herself and her husband, he always goes out with Bertha and spends all of his money. Her rage is apparent when she says how much she hates him, yet there are some interesting lines that show she still remembers love. For instance, as explained by the narrator  in one of the important quotes from “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston “Ah hates you tuh de same degree dat Ah useter love yuh.” She remembers how she used to feel about him, back when they first were married and she remembers planting flowers and trying to make a nice home, but his continued abuse of her causes these feelings to eventually fade by the end of the story when she allows him to die. In the case of “Sweat” love and hate are continuously going back and forth and she even “attempted friendliness, but she was repulsed each time”. The repression in “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston, in the end, perhaps even more than the simple and constant rage, was what caused her to finally let him die in the end (since I don’t believe she wanted to save him).

The male domination, which leads to female repression in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is, while at heart, still the same in the basic terms that a woman’s emotions are stifled until a breaking point, there are a few key differences. For instance, unlike the main character in “Sweat”, this woman is not beaten or physically abused in any direct way, but she is smothered. Therefore, her feelings of love and hate can’t be expressed naturally and instead of seeing her own loves and hates, she puts her emotions onto the woman in the wallpaper.

The lady behind the paper that she sees is actually herself. Much like the main character, the wallpaper woman is, as the narrator explained in one of the important quotes from “The Yellow Wallpaper” “all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern — it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.” In some sense, the pattern is a symbol for the pattern of the woman’s oppression, that she can’t get out of her “cage” because he husband is keeping everything about her suppressed. The many heads can be seen as a symbol of all the things the woman wants to do, She wishes she could write and have guests over, but she can’t and instead, the woman in the wallpaper has all these “heads” or ideas of what she wants to do.

Another difference between the love/hate relationships and gender roles in “Sweat” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” is that in “Sweat” the female main character knows by the end that she hates her husband and what he puts her through. She actually is able to express her feelings of love and hate, even though she is a woman that is oppressed by the behavior and abuse of husband. The main character in “The Yellow Wallpaper” remains clueless though about her true feelings of hate that she might have for husband and it seems like she’s on the verge of saying she feels smothered when all of a sudden, there’ll be a line expressing how he takes care of her and she forgets thinking (or writing) ideas like “I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition. She blames her feelings of hate on her “condition” which almost seems like something her husband put on her to keep her in her place, but that is debatable.

In terms of this suggestion about oppression, in “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner there is yet another example of a woman who’s feelings of love and hate are suppressed due to male influences. Like the woman in “Sweat”, she keeps these hateful or even fearful feelings bottled up until she does something crazy (like murder her suitor). In “A Rose for Emily”, like in “Sweat”, the male is represented as very powerful and dominating, and in Emily’s case, it’s her father. There is an interesting description of him next to Emily that the narrator describes. “Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. This imagery of the father with the whip next to a fragile Emily against a white (suggesting purity) background tends to make one see the dominating nature of their relationship better than any long passages of their conversations ever could (if some of those had been included, that is). Emily’s reclusive behavior and inability to handle her father’s death and another man coming into her world is proof that her emotions of love and hate were so intermixed that she didn’t know how to react when she was only supposed to feel one or the other.

The husband in “Sweat” and Emily’s father can be best compared to each other because seem to be men that are threatening to female emotions and “normal” love and hate feelings. In both of these stories, the two women characters are forced to act out this oppression through murder. It almost seems like neither of them have a choice, even if it’s for different reasons. Emily’s reason for murder remains unclear because there aren’t a lot of details given, aside from the fact that she used rat poison and kept the body around. In Emily’s case, her feelings of love and mixed with a strange kind of hate because she keeps the body, maybe so he won’t be able to leave her like her father did. While the main character in “Sweat” didn’t commit murder completely, I still consider her reaction to her husband’s bite a form of murder since she made a conscious decision to do nothing about it and seemed so calm. Again, like Emily though, her feelings were so confused and the lines between love and hate were blurred because she’d spent so much time as a wife in a subservient (for the setting, typically female) position.

It is just as possible to look at gender roles as they apply to feelings of love and hate by looking at “A Rose for Emily” in comparison with “The Yellow Wallpaper” as well because both female characters seem to be a little crazy. Neither of them have a clear place in society and this is because they are the victims of male domination. Both Emily and the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” try to balance their feelings of love and hate but in the end, these attempts fail and they “snap”. This ultimate result of male domination of female emotions is the reason for all of these main characters downfalls (if you can consider all of them to be that, which is questionable) and it almost seems that there three stories could have all been in the same section under either “Men and Women” or “Love and Hate”.

Other articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include : Summary and Analysis of “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston   •   Psychological Character Analysis of Miss Emily in “A Rose for Emily” by Faulkner   •   The Role of Oppression in “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston  •    The Yellow Wallpaper : Gilman’s Techniques for Portraying Oppression of Women