Ayman Abuawad

Mrs.O’keefe
1-8-20

Being Alone

Isolation, a common theme amongst many texts, but two in particular really caught my attention.

Those two short stories are , “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “ The Yellow

Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Although these two shorts both speak about solitary

and isolation, they each take a different approach to the subject.

Let’s start by talking about isolation. What is it? Solitary comes from the latin word solus, which

means alone. Solitary is done or existing alone. Being alone for a long period of time is not

good for anyone. Humans need social interactions in order to keep them mentally sane, some of

the worst punishment you can give to someone keeping them alone. For example look at the

prison system, the punishment for the worst criminals in the world is solitary confinement.

Solitary confinement is when an inmate is locked in his or her cell for 22 to 24 hours out of the

day with absolutely no human contact inside a cell that is 80 square feet in size which is no

bigger than a horse stable. When you isolate yourself from everyone and everything all your are

left with is yourself and your mind. Isolation increases the risk of mental health issues coming

into play such as depression, dementia, social anxiety and low self esteem. Someone might

develop depression because of their extreme loneliness and then become even more isolated

because of the depression. Human beings are social animals meaning they strive on

interactions with other humans so social isolation causes problems especially in adults. Adults

are more prone to social isolation due to the stress that could be going on internally or
externally. Since it is much more common in adults than it is in children, more efforts are put into

clarifying the effects on adults than the children.

“ A Rose for Emily “ by William Faulkner shows one take on isolation. Which is isolation by

choice, meaning the main character Ms.Emily kept herself in isolation because she wanted to

and didn't know any better for herself. But not at first, throughout her childhood she was forced

to be alone which then translated into her adult life. Her father was in control of her until he was

dead, but even after he died, he was still in control of her. Which she showed through her

actions. After her father died she kept the corpse in her house. Since he has been alone all the

time she never realized that this type of behavior is quite odd for a normal person. “ When Miss

Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral…. The women mostly out of curiosity to

see the inside of her house.” Meaning she had no connection with the people in her own town.

The men who went to her funeral went out of respect but the women decided to go because

they have never seen inside the house. No one had gone in because she chose not to let

anyone in. Hence the term self isolation. She isolated herself on her own terms. Yes, her father

had an impact on her as she was a child but once he died she had full control of her life and she

made her own choices. So any isolation on her life was being put on by her. “Being left alone,

and a pauper, she had become humanized.Now she too would know the old thrill and the old

despair of a penny more or less.” She was left all alone in her house. Her father never let her go

out and make new friends as a kid so now she is all alone in her house with no one else. This

type of self isolation is not good for anyone because as you can see by Miss Emily, it didn't

cause her to go crazy but it did cause her to feel alone and depressed and the saddest part of

all is that she died alone. Social Isolation causes a lot of internal problems, especially mental

health problems. The self isolation that Miss Emily brought onto herself was something she
didn't realize she was doing but the overall effect was much greater. She tried multiple times to

break herself out of this vicious cycle of loneliness but it just lead her to even more trouble. In

the story Miss Emily was actually actually introduced to someone from a construction company,

“The construction company came with niggers and mules and machinery, and a foreman named

Homer Barron.” Soon Miss Emily would only leave her lonely house to only go out and see

Homer Barron, “Presently we began to see him and Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in

the yellow-wheeled buggy and the matched team of bays from the livery stable.” Homer Barron

was the only person she would go out with which was still scared due to the fact that other than

with him she was still all alone. Her father kept her alone throughout her whole childhood and

she hated him for it. “"I want some poison," she said to the druggist.” This is a point in the story

where Miss Emily has gone to a drug store and asked the clerk for some rat poison, but she

never tell the clerk why she needs it. In the beginning the clerk was hesitant to give it to her but

Miss Emily kept on insisting that he should give it to her. The odd part about all this was that she

did not have rats in her house so why would she need the rat poison. “A neighbor saw the

Negro man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening. And that was the last we saw of

Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time.” Since then no one saw Homer Barron so

people started to believe that Miss Emily killed him and what made it more suspicious was that

she also disappeared for a while. “but for almost six months she did not appear on the streets”

She snapped and her poor sanity lead to a man’s poor death. Miss Emily isolated herself over

and over again. She struggled to go out and have a social presence in her town and in the end

she died all alone in her house, and no one even cared.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman gives us the readers another take on

isolation and this take is isolation that is forced. Meaning you are being forced to be alone,
forced into solidarity with no choice but to comply because the people in control think they know

more about your own health than you do. In “ The Yellow Wallpaper” the main character's

husband was in control of her life and her health, because according to him she is not well and

she doesn't know how she can fix that. To his defense, she does seem sick because we know

from the start that she is an unreliable narrator meaning we can not really trust everything she

has to say because of her condition. “ If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband,

assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary

nervous depression” He himself realizes there really is something wrong but for her own sanity

he tells her it really is just nothing. To make sure she is getting the proper treatment in his

opinion he keeps her locked up in a room all day alone just like a prisoner, with almost no

connection to the outside world. She is barely even allowed outside on their own property. `The

isolation is caused by someone who thinks they know better about the person but in reality they

are hurting them more than they are helping them. One thing that really showed isolation in this

short story is where they kept the main character. The setting described by her shows that she

was basically in a luxury prison cell. “ To jump out the window would be an admirable exercise,

but the bars are too strong to even try.” I mean there are bars on her window so she doesn't try

to escape. They are forcing her into isolation so much that she doesn't even realize how bad it

is. In the story she also focuses on one thing that really seems to bother her. The wallpaper in

her room is the center of this story and seems to be taking her farther and farther away from her

sanity. This wallpaper is making her go crazy, which is not surprising because that is all she is

looking at all day. The main character goes on to make a scenario with the wallpaper, saying

that there is a woman trapped. Her being forced to sit in that room all day caused her mental

state to dramatically change. This goes with what I previously stated, where isolation can lead

to mental health issues and most likely insanity. "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!" At this point she has had

such an obsession with this wallpaper in her room that she created a fantasy that a woman is

stuck and only comes out at night. She has spent so much time in that room all alone not being

able to leave it caused her to turn to anything that took her mind off being alone. When her

husband saw what she was doing and finally got into her room he was in shock of what he saw.

He saw his wife finally snap, and what did he do? Nothing because his body gave out and he

passed out on the floor. It isn’t clear whether he was dead or not because all we got from the

narrator was that she had to step over him to get in and out of the room, meaning he must have

been there for quite a long time.

“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner took one perspective of isolation. Which was being alone

because of you, meaning self isolating. “ The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

took one other perspective on isolation which was being forced to be alone. Isolating to

someone brought upon by someone else. In these two stories, the isolation brought upon them

made them lose their sanity, they both went crazy in the end. Isolation on human beings has

many negative effects. Lots of those effects also being linked to forms of mental health issues.

Social isolation can lead to depression, dementa, social anxiety and low self-esteem. The

actions that these two characters showed was due to the loneliness each of them felt. In “A

Rose for Emily” Miss Emily snapped at the end and decided loneliness was the best for her so

she ended up killing her lover, even though he did nothing wrong to her. In :” The Yellow

Wallpaper” the nameless narrator snapped and tore apart her room all because she saw a

woman trapped inside her wallpaper that would only come out at night, but in reality this mystery

women in the wall was her own mind telling her she needed to escape. By freeing the women in

the wall, the narrator would also libertae herself and finally be able to do as she pleases.
Throughout both stories these characters were unreliable because they were not in their right

state of mind. Over all, isolation is never good for anyone no matter what you think. Human

beings are social creatures so we tend to strive off of our social interactions. Once that is

stripped from us people tend to lose their sanity. They go crazy because isolation very often

tends to lead to mental health problems. And these mental health problems are getting worse

and worse, the attention and proper care for these mental health issues is not very good. So we

must do our best to avoid these situations. Don’t keep yourself locked up, go out and talk to

people. You need it to survive.