A Rose For Emily Postpartum Depression

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Women’s rights activist Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience." While these are truly words to live by, victims of depression, a condition in which a person becomes withdrawn and emotionally inactive, may find this difficult to do. This is presented in “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. “A Rose for Emily” depicts the story of Emily Grierson, a stubborn woman who is a burden to the people of her small, southern town. As a result of her Grierson bloodline, Miss Emily is treated like she's different from the other residents of her town. As a consequence …show more content…
Jane is a victim of postpartum depression, which essentially means depression following childbirth. As the story progresses, it is apparent that Jane’s condition develops into postpartum psychosis. Symptoms of postpartum psychosis include having delusions and hallucinations. In Jane’s case, she was imagining that other women with her condition were trapped behind the wallpaper in her room. Additionally, this wallpaper fueled her suicidal thoughts, as shown through Jane’s description of her room and its decoration. “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 contradictions” (Gilman). This describes how Jane occupies herself in the house to which she is bound. In addition to Jane’s worsening condition because of her immediate setting, the time period of the story causes Jane's husband to confine her in an attempt at rehabilitation. In most cases, when a woman had postpartum depression or psychosis in the 1800s, the ‘rest cure’ was prescribed. The ‘rest cure’ was a treatment that prevented the patient from working, having company, or getting any physical exercise. While the doctors of the time thought this cure to be helpful, it often led to the patient's decline into the worse state of postpartum psychosis. In …show more content…
Miss Emily’s father was a very traditional man who wanted his daughter to marry a Southern gentleman. However, he had very high standards for his child, and many a man was turned down. As a result of this, the townspeople thought Miss Emily and her father were figureheads of a once glorious past. “We had long thought of them as a tableau; 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” (Faulkner). Emily’s father’s total control over her life made Emily think that she would only be able to cease her loneliness through the murder of her beau, Homer Barron, whose rotting corpse was kept in the Grierson home for forty years following his death. Additionally, her lack of power effected Miss Emily’s mental state as her father prevented her from having a life and family of her own, causing her depression. As a result of her father’s constant protection, Emily thought her status to be above the townsfolk and was kept away from them, which lead to continued separation later in life. The time period and the setting around Miss Emily caused her depression and feeling of abandonment to worsen by further creating a barrier between herself and the townspeople with her differing opinion of social status. In its prime, the Grierson home was the most prestigious house on the most prestigious street in the town. However, as the years passed, it
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