Women of the Nineteenth Century: Relating protagonists in two short stories

Women of the Nineteenth Century: Relating protagonists in two short stories

The short stories, A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner and A New England Nun by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, both contain analogous regional attitudes resulting in similar outcomes for the protagonists of each story. The archaic 19th century regional standards the authors utilized within the text of these short stories, emphasizes the role of a woman within society as being strictly limited to family and household matters. Can the regional standards of the 19th century be such that if not met, a woman is left with no other option then to become a spinster? Regional values of the nineteenth century placed women in a precarious position within society, influencing their actions so profoundly that upholding honor and duty were simply undisputed.

In A Rose for Emily, the protagonist, Emily Grierson, is a woman of great nobility in her town, and she is bound by her duty as their elected icon. Through the years, the town’s residents developed a respect for her family’s wealth and privilege. So much so, that upon the death of Miss Emily’s father, the mayor of her town relieved her taxation obligation indefinitely. However, the mayor, knowing that Miss Emily would not accept charity, concocted an untruth involving her father loaning the town money, in order to justify the tax relief, and allow Miss Emily to proudly accept the gracious offer. There is much to be said for influencing such power in a family name, and much to live up to for Miss Emily. Her father was an ambiguous character, and he made it clear that the common townsmen were not worthy suitors for his daughter. Her father’s obstinate attitude, and her regional afflictions, contributed to Miss Emily being unwed for years longer than expected for a woman of such class and distinction. The town took a sort of perverse pleasure from the fact that “when she got to be thirty and was still single; we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated even with insanity in the family she wouldn’t have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized” (1350). When Miss Emily was around forty, she met a common man named Homer Barron. Homer was a laborer, not fit to marry a woman of such distinction as Miss Emily. If Miss Emily were to marry such a common man as Homer Barron, the town would be in a quiet uproar of disagreement.