This paper discusses that female protagonists Minnie Wright in Susan Glaspell's "Trifles", Emily Grierson in William Faulkner's
"A Rose for Emily" and the narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" are all dominated by male figures, all suffer from
depression and all eventually commit violence. The author points out that none of these women have active control of their lives; however, each in their own way makes a desperate attempt to take action to seek a type of redemption for the misery and
humiliation they have endured by the male figures in their lives. The paper relates that Gilman actually gives a first hand account of her experience with depression, explaining that she had suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown and sought help from a noted specialist in nervous diseases.