In The Yellow Wallpaper and A Rose for Emily, the two female protagonists all wish to have their own rooms. However, their rooms are not completely owned by them rather than occupied by male-dominated society. Without their own room, by implication, they may lose freedom and the growth of the psyche restricted. They have no power to seek alternative solution or to get even with the wounds inflicted on their bodies or minds. In reality worse, they may become “madwomen” in people’s eyes. As Virginia Woolf said, a woman ought to have “her own room” and enough money (3). “Madwomen” may be deserted and relegated to the secondary tier of human being. At the beginning, the two female protagonists in …show more content…
Her room is like a “tomb”: dark, gloomy, and frightful and covered with dust and cobwebs. She inherits from her father “a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies” (28). The whole antiquated house is seen as a symbol and of patriarchal society. It inhibits Emily from going outside or meeting people. Actually, Emily lives under shadow of male-dominated world and awaits her doom. “She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue” (32). In it, she passes through her youthful days, happiness, and freedom. In her life, she has tended to surrender herself to the patriarchal power. Her father’s influence on her is profound that she is hard to extricate herself. Spiritedly, she slowly becomes a “monument” of ancient tradition in town but she has also involuntarily extricate relegated herself to the …show more content…
The nameless narrator loves writing and she has independent thoughts. Nonetheless, she has no formal occupation and cannot make enough money to support herself. At the same time, Emily’s father left little for her to carry on her life. She does not have any option for survival. However, both the nameless narrator and Emily suffer from male coercion and external pressures. Emma Domínguez-Rué says clearly, the true woman was connectedly seen as “decorative object” and they are beautiful, dependent and submissive (3). Family members and the society are somewhat controlled by the patriarchal views. Sylvia Bailey Walby claims that patriarchy is like a system of social structures and practices. Men dominate, oppress and exploit women through this system (3). Patriarchal or the male-dominant values were used to be the source of ideas or thoughts, thus helping shape the biased view of gender for the ordinary