“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are two short stories that incorporate multiple similarities and differences. The main characters in both stories are women isolated from the world by male characters and ultimately driven to madness. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the unidentified narrator moves to an isolated area with her husband and sister-in-law in hopes of overcoming her illness. In "A Rose for Emily", Emily's father keeps Emily sheltered from the world and when he dies, she is left with nothing. The two stories have many similarities and differences regarding setting, characterization, symbolism, and their isolation from the world by dominant male figures, which leads them to madness. Both Emily and the narrator face issues related to their identities in the short stories. Both take place in different settings, although both women are essentially imprisoned in their homes. The two women are at very different times in their lives. In "A Rose for Emily", she starts out young and ends up being an old woman. “The Yellow Wallpaper,” focuses on the narrator as a middle-aged woman, and takes place over just a few months. The two stories give different perspectives on women since "The Yellow Wallpaper" is written in the first person while "A Rose for Emily" is written in the third person. Nevertheless, we see that the lives of the two women are similar in some ways but different in other ways. Both the narrator and Emily lived in homes with dominant male figures. Where they lived was different, but they both faced isolation in their own homes. In "A Rose for Emily", Emily's house was described as "a large square frame house... middle of paper... Emily's life was spent in isolation." In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator was also isolated in her house. The house her husband had chosen to stay in was abandoned and had no tenants for years. The house has been described as a former insane asylum. At home, “John is away all day, and even some nights” (Gilman 2). The narrator spends most of her day alone while John works and her sister-in-law gives her some alone time. During her time alone, the narrator focuses on the wallpaper and it drives her to madness as she sees and imagines and strives to free the woman she sees. The isolation the narrator faces plays with her mind and drives her crazy. The time alone was supposed to help ease the narrator's illness, but it only makes the situation worse. Works Cited A Rose for Emily, William Faulkner The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman