Alexa Samano

Mrs. O’Keefe
AP Literature
19 Janurary 2020

The Madness in Confinement

Women were always forced in some form of confinement and restriction in freedom
mainly because of men. Women weren’t allowed to vote until 1920. Women weren’t allowed to
join the army until 1948. Women were oppressed from jobs until around the 19th-20th century.
Women throughout history were set inferior to men, and even when they were allowed to legally
do as much as men, most men refused to believe women had the capabilities equal to them—and
it could be due to insecure masculinity and their traditional figure to holding an authoritative
position in the household. Literature, such as “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, “The
Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin,
has expressed such confinement of women through the narration of their unique reactions to
men’s authority.

In the text, “The Story of An Hour” a woman named Mrs. Mallard was given the news
that her husband has died in an accident. There was no context given between the type of
relationship Mrs. and Mr. Mallard had, until it stated, “...she felt it, creeping out of the sky,
reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air,” (Chopin 1).
Contrary to how a woman would feel after hearing she has become a widow, the usage of diction
“sky” and “color” revealed a pleasant and happy feeling Mrs. Mallard had. It can be inferred that
Mrs. Mallard may have been in a constricted relationship based on the usage of diction that is
typically used to feel open and free. Furthermore, the text states, “But she saw beyond that bitter
moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely,” (Chopin 2).
Despite the death of her husband, Mrs. Mallard has taken notice that her life is now hers. This
exemplifies further to demonstrating how her marriage confined Mrs. Mallard caused her to see
past the death of her husband and instead shifted her focus on herself.

An outsider’s eyes would see this as a type of madness because one wouldn’t expect a
woman to be grateful for her husband’s death. Mrs. Mallard further expresses her independence
as it states, “There will be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for
herself,” (Chopin 2). Mrs. Mallard stresses the idea of her independence and control over her
own life, and one can inference that she was forced to have her life revolve around her husband
as the usage of diction “no one to live for” was directed toward her situation with her husband.
Towards the end of the story, it states, “It was Brently Mallard...He had been far from the scene
of the accident...When the doctors came they said she has died of heart disease--of the joy that
kills,” (Chopin 2). Based on previous texts that exhibited Mrs. Mallard’s want and excitement for
her freedom, after hearing the news that her husband was alive, she had died. This is an ironic
usage of diction to state that the “joy that kills” can be exhibited as a form of madness because
she has died from the fact her husband is alive when she didn’t want him to be alive. His life had
meant that her freedom and control over her own life has also perished, so by being dead, Mrs.
Mallard would no longer be confined by her marriage or husband and would be far from him in
life through the barrier of death. The authority Mr. Mallard had over her wife caused his wife to
choose death over the extra years with him.

In “A Rose for Emily,” the town speaks of a woman named Emily who in the eyes of the
town, her behavior is abnormal. Her behavior, however, can be explained throughout the text
based on her life being revolved around men. The text states, “After her father’s death, she went
out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all,” (Faulkner 2). The
authority of both her father and her significant other has caused a disruption in her life, which
evidently caused her to confine herself because there are no men in her life. Her behavior
continues to be disturbing as the text states, “She told them that her father was not dead. She did
that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let
them dispose of the body...she broke down and they buried her father quickly,” (Faulkner 3).
One can say she was driven to madness to keep her father because of the fact she kept the corpse
of her father. He was an authoritative figure in her life that she believed she needed, and it is
exemplified as it states, “We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her
father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that
which had robbed her, as people will,” (Faulkner 3). Emily was not used to living her life
without authority, so when she has finally had the undiscovered freedom, she drove herself to
madness because she was lost without men. Her father’s authority and confinement were a
tradition and normality for her, so by keeping the dead corpse, it can be inferred she would
remain in the palm of his hand as long as he was present in her mind.

She then sought another man for authority after her father was officially taken away, “At
first we were glad that Miss Emily would have an interest...even grief could not cause a real lady
to forget noblesse,” (Faulkner 4). This act of her seeking men for authority because it was what
she has been accustomed to. She has met a man named Homer Barron and has started to cling to
him. This has been noticed by the townspeople as it states, “that quality of her father which had
thwarted her woman’s life so many times had been too virulent and too furious to die,” (Faulkner
5). The idea of authority in her life was instilled in her head, so it was clear that eventually,
Emily would continue her tradition of seeking men to place as an authoritative figure. This is
further expressed as it states, “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 7). The usage of
imagery of stating “iron-gray hair” and the diction “acrid” hints at the idea that Emily has gone
through a type of madness and killed Homer Barron. The death of Homer Barron could be
inferred that it was to replace what she has lost, a man with authority in her life such as her
father. Emily has lost her sanity by never having the freedom she needed because her father had
always been there to take control of her life, and since she lost that figure, she did not know how
to react other than desperately find a way to keep the consistency in her life. Throughout the
story, one can observe that she seeks tradition and is conservative, so it only made sense for her
to find another man to keep in her life to obtain the missing authority.

At the beginning of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator initializes her perspective of
the room with horror and disgust, but she didn’t let herself do anything about it as it was her
husband’s idea to live there. As she lives there, she focuses first on her health as it states,
“Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with
excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do?” (Gilman 1). The traditional
marriage only allowed the man to hold authority, to which the narrator followed and didn’t rebel
against her treatment of the “resting cure.” As she continues to remain in her room, she described
in her journal the room’s wallpaper, “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following,
pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame
uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide--plunge off at outrageous
angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradiction,” (Gilman 2). Her focus shifted to the
designs of the room as it took her mind off what other things she couldn’t do. In a sense, one
could question how the narrator’s perspective of the room could be the reflection of her illness as
she could do nothing else to express her emotions towards the confinement.

The narrator’s initial form of self-expression was her journal entry in which she kept
hidden from John. In the journal, she stated, “The wall-paper, as I said before, is torn off in spots,
and it sticketh closer than a brother--they must have had perseverance as well as hatred. Then the
floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this
great heavy bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars,”
(Gilman 4). The narrator’s husband is pushing her sanity to shift to madness because of the lack
of freedom and force in confinement in her room. Her rollercoaster of emotions with the
wallpaper exemplifies her madness. She continues to criticize her room as she explains her
disgust and horror towards the wallpaper and quickly claims to want to leave the place.
However, her opinion of the yellow wallpaper shifts to curiosity and indulges herself after her
claim of becoming bored with writing in her journal. However, she contradicts herself before the
feeling of curiosity as in the text, it states, “And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping
about behind that pattern. I don't like it a bit,” (Gilman 6). Later she admits, “The outside pattern
is a florid arabesque, reminding one of a fungus. If you can imagine a toadstool in joints, an
interminable string of toadstools, budding and sprouting in endless convolutions—why, that is
something like it.” As time continues to pass by, she focuses more on the wallpaper and later
sees more beauty yet horrid to the woman in the wallpaper. This is the moment one could say her
perspective of reality is lost for she sees a woman in the wallpaper she illustrated as “dull.” Her
constant confinement to her room and household drove her to madness and changed her
perspective to have her self-expression be exhibited within the wallpaper to give a sense of
reflection of her situation instead of continuing to express herself in her journal. Her perspective
of reality no longer conforms to that of a normal human being.

There were times during her stay where the narrator claims to see the woman in the
wallpaper creep around, inside and outside, and at nighttime. She expressed in the text, “I don't
like to look out of the windows even-- there are so many of those creeping women, and they
creep so fast,” (Gilman 10). This perspective alters her reality as she focuses more on what
doesn’t seem there in the eyes of others and only her’s. She becomes obsessed later on as it
states, “It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!” (Gilman 10).
This is the moment where her perspective is completely different from what she had in the
beginning as it can be inferred that the creepiness was her illness that finally unraveled from the
confinement in her home. Her madness was released and her self-expression was forced upon to
become what she saw in the wallpaper—her reflection in the wallpaper coming out as well. "‘I've
got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you
can't put me back!’" (Gilman 11). The perspective of the narrator has gradually changed and was
revealed so through the setting of her room and her emotions towards the wallpaper. As she
claims to no longer be in the wallpaper, her perspective was fixed to believe that she was trapped
but now free despite still remaining in the room. The confinement she was in eventually led her
to insanity because she lacked other forms of self-expression and forced herself through it with
the wallpaper. Her shifts in emotions towards the wallpaper formed her perspective to different
areas, from disgust to curiosity. Her claimed illness was neglected and not taken seriously, so all
she was left to do was be driven mad until she becomes independent of her own insanity.

“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins
Gilman, and “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin interconnect through the idea that the lack
of freedom and experience in confinement due to the authority of men forces women into
madness. “The Story of An Hour” uses diction and imagery to depict Mrs. Mallard’s emotions
towards her freedom from marriage and Mr. Mallard. When it turns out he is alive and she would
still be living with him and be married to him, her madness was exposed by her sudden death at
the realization. Similarly, Emily, in “A Rose for Emily,” reacted to the death of her father
through a type of madness that caused her to become obsessed with finding someone to fill his
position to control her life by killing Homer Barron. Though Emily killed someone and Mrs.
Mallard was the one that died, they both reacted with death being involved because their
confinement and lack of freedom due to the men in their life caused them to result in that manner
of madness. Likewise, in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator’s mental illness was ignored by
her husband because he used his authority as a husband and doctor to justify that she is fine. By
confining and isolating her in her room, the narrator was driven to madness over her particular
attention to the wallpaper in her room. The narrator in the story faced a similar constraint in
marriage like Mrs. Mallard and forced herself into madness because of her husband. Similar to
Emily, the narrator in a sense “killed” her husband, John, because she “released” herself from the
wallpaper. The usage of imagery within each text exhibited their slow pace of madness revealing
itself depending on their relationship with the men in their life. The confinement and emotions
the characters felt in the literature impacted the way the story and setting developed throughout
the plot. Emily’s insanity impacted the townspeople and their perspective of her, Mrs. Mallard’s
final freedom expressed hope and a transition to a new life filled with description of color, but
the sudden disruption led to conflict and the end to her story, and finally, the narrator’s
entrapment in “The Yellow Wallpaper” in her nursery room led to her fascination yet disgust
with the wallpaper that soon affected her perspective of reality and created questions to what the
narrator narration is real or fantasy. Women must be allowed to express themselves and have the
freedom to act as they want. Women can impact more than what men want, so the awareness
must be spread that women are much more capable of things that weren’t expected of.