In A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, Faulkner uses Miss Emily and the town of Grierson to emphasize his theme of human fear of change. Faulkner uses characters and symbols to portray this theme. Everything about Miss Emily shows how she is afraid of change: her actions, home, and relationships with people. When Miss Emily’s father dies, she denies it and refuses to accept the loss of comfort her father gave her. Miss Emily keeps her father’s body in her home because she unwilling to accept life without him. She is scared of losing things and life changing. Faulkner uses the rose as a symbol to show loss in Emily’s life and how she refuses to let go of Homer. It is the reason why Miss Emily poisons Homer Baron; she fears Homer will leave her. She felt that it would be better to kill Homer and keep him, rather than letting Homer leave her. The people of Grierson also fear change; they are tied to old South traditions and cultures. They refuse to accept Miss Emily’s relationship with Homer Baron because it does not follow typical Southern traditions and culture. The fear of change is prevalent in this community; Emily not wanting to give of her father’s body shows how resistant Emily is to anything changing in her life. Emily and the town of Grierson are afraid of anything in their society changing because they have always followed tradition; Emily is a byproduct of this community not wanting to change: “Emily is a product of that society and she clings desperately to it as when she refuses to give up her father’s body” (Dilworth 252). When Miss Emily’s father dies, she enters a state of denial. Emily’s father had been her caretaker, provider, and protector. He was the prime figure in her life and gave her a ... ... middle of paper ... ...lities. He also uses their actions to reveal human resistant to avoid change. The rose and keeping Emily’s fathers body are used to portray the attempt to control change and avoid it. The town of Grierson show how uneasy the society is about changing and are bound to their traditions. Faulkner uses the theme of fear of change to reveal a meaning in the story. Humans naturally do not feel comfortable with change happening in their lives and it is their natural instinct to avoid change. Everyday humans attempt to avoid change without even noticing they are. This leaves the reader to think how comfortable they are with change, and what they do in their daily lives to avoid change without even noticing it. It is very clear Faulkner recognizes this fear of change and makes readers aware the dangers of avoiding change, and that change can never be truly avoided.
Life is sad and tragic; some of which is made for us and some of which we make ourselves. Emily had a hard life. Everything that she loved left her. Her father probably impressed upon her that every man she met was no good for her. The townspeople even state “when her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad…being left alone…She had become humanized” (219). This sounds as if her father’s death was sort of liberation for Emily. In a way it was, she could begin to date and court men of her choice and liking. Her father couldn’t chase them off any more. But then again, did she have the know-how to do this, after all those years of her father’s past actions? It also sounds as if the townspeople thought Emily was above the law because of her high-class stature. Now since the passing of her father she may be like them, a middle class working person. Unfortunately, for Emily she became home bound.
The domineering attitude of Emily's father keeps her to himself, inside the house, and alone until his death. In his own way, Emily's father shows her how to love. Through a forced obligation to love only him, as he drives off young male callers, he teaches his daughter lessons of love. It is this dysfunctional love that resurfaces later, because it is the only way Emily knows how to love.
Having to send Emily in her early days to live with her father was a burdensome nuisance. All of Emily's father's attributes were rubbing off on her, "all of the baby loveliness gone," (p.
When her father passed away, it was a devastating loss for Miss Emily. The lines from the story 'She told them her father was not dead. She did that for three days,' (Charter 171) conveys the message that she tried to hold on to him, even after his death. Even though, this was a sad moment for Emily, but she was liberated from the control of her father. Instead of going on with her life, her life halted after death of her father. Miss Emily found love in a guy named Homer Barron, who came as a contractor for paving the sidewalks in town. Miss Emily was seen in buggy on Sunday afternoons with Homer Barron. The whole town thought they would get married. One could know this by the sentences in the story ?She will marry him,? ?She will persuade him yet,? (Charter 173).
No one leaves Miss Emily. Miss Emily feared that she loved leaving her. As she clung to the past, even one she created in her own mind, she morphed her own denial into a life for herself. She refused to die in any form. Her mind tried to survive a state of mind in which abandonment was lethal.
By managing to appear as “Poor Emily”, seemingly fitting into an old, deteriorating woman look, she was given, and had taken, full control of all major aspects of her life. Controlling decisions that were not completely hers, people that had no obligation to follow her, and controlling the the death of her lover. She displays an unhealthy power that she had inherited from her overbearing father, taking control through position, and
Emily had a servant so that she did not have to leave the house, where she could remain in solitary. The front door was never opened to the house, and the servant came in through the side door. Even her servant would not talk to anyone or share information about Miss Emily. When visitors did come to Emily’s door, she became frantic and nervous as if she did not know what business was. The death of Emily’s father brought about no signs of grief, and she told the community that he was not dead. She would not accept the fact that she had been abandoned because of her overwhelming fear. Emily’s future husband deserted her shortly after her father’s death. These two tragic events propelled her fear of abandonment forward, as she hired her servant and did not leave the house again shortly after. She also worked from home so that she never had a reason to leave. Emily did not have any family in the area to console in because her father had run them off after a falling out previously. She also cut her hair short to remind her of a time when she was younger and had not been deserted. Even though people did not live for miles of Emily Grierson, citizens began
As time went on pieces from Emily started to drift away and also the home that she confined herself to. The town grew a great deal of sympathy towards Emily, although she never hears it. She was slightly aware of the faint whispers that began when her presence was near. Gossip and whispers may have been the cause of her hideous behavior. The town couldn’t wait to pity Ms. Emily because of the way she looked down on people because she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and she never thought she would be alone the way her father left her.
Emily attempts to recapture her past by escaping from the present. She wants to leave the present and go back to a happier past. Miss Emily wants to find the love she once knew. “After her father’s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all” (243). Emily alienates herself from everyone when the two people she has loved most in her life go away. She becomes afraid to grow close to anyone in fear of losing them again.
The town that Emily leaved had its own voice that was describing her as ?tradition a duty, and a care?. Everybody in town acted differently to Miss Emily, but they all come together to one opinion that she was a woman who kept her life to herself at the all time. In her younger years her father had driven all her suitors away by simply explaining that no man is good for his daughter. Emily did not have the confidence, or maybe self-esteem and self-worth, to believe that she could stand alone and succeed at life especially in the face of changing times. She had always been ruled by, and depended on her father, Tobe and Homer Barron to protect, defend and act for herself.
Emily’s reaction to her father’s death reveals her inability to accepting of let go of the past and as well as her inability to live independently.
Miss Emily cannot accept change to any degree. She is unable to ameliorate as the rest of the society does. The Old South is becoming the New South, and yet Emily still has a Negro man helping around the house. Her house "had once been white" and sits on what "had once been" a most select street, however now it is surrounded by cotton gins, garages, and gasoline pumps. This scene creates a sense of the house being "an eyesore among eyesores" (469). Another example of Miss Emily's ability to refuse change is when she does not allow a house number to be placed on her house when the town receives free postal service.
...she believed might be the only way to keep the man she loved from leaving her. Out of desperation for human love, when she realized Homer would leave her she murdered him so she could at least cling to his body. In his death, Emily finally found eternal love that no one could every take from her.
Death causes Emily to become insane. After Emily’s father dies she keeps his body. Emily fears change. (“Literary Criticism: ‘A Rose for Emily” Teenink). She is afraid of losing the people that are close to her. Even though her father is spiritually gone she keeps his dead body. (“Literary Criticism: ‘A Rose for Emily” Teenink).
Growing up Emily’s father, Mr. Gierson, made her stay in the house and not socialize with others. He taught her that he was only trying to protect her from the outside world. Mr.Gierson was a rude man who felt that things should go his way; therefore, his daughter hopelessly fell for him because she did not know any oth...