Emily Grierson Isolation

An eccentric and mentally imbalanced woman is the epitome of isolation in William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily”. The audience is a witness to the interaction between one woman and her society, which played a vital role in her isolation. The ideal that Miss Emily Grierson represents complicates her overall pursuit of her dreams and illusions. Throughout this short story, one detects a sense of dehumanization towards Miss Emily from the community. One can never be too sure if the community is in fact pleased with the choices made by Miss Emily or is in complete disagreement. There is a constant tug of war between the people of the different generations found within this particular Southern population and a deeper look into the text

She allows the town to feel nostalgic. The town’s attitude towards Miss Emily throughout the story is another indication on the dehumanization or objectification she faced within the community. Before her father died and her lover disappeared, “People in our town…believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were”. When a smell develops, it is described as “another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons”. Both pieces of text suggest that the town as a whole viewed Emily and her family as unapproachable and pretentious—larger than life. However, when Emily’s father is dead, leaving her nothing but the house, and it appears that her lover has left her, the townspeople’s attitude changes: “At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone and a pauper, she had become humanized”. However, the town does not necessarily view Emily with any more humanity after the reversal of her fortunes, rather they go from viewing her as an arrogant, wealthy woman, to seeing her as a liability to the town: “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town”. An example of this obligatory compassion for Miss Emily is that the townspeople send their

Since she learns the superiority of the Grierson family early in life, and her father fends off unworthy suitors, Emily remains single at the age of thirty. Emily also has an aunt that goes insane: “Old lady Wyatt, her great aunt, had gone completely crazy at last”. Whether it be the influence of her relatives or simply their genes that contribute to Emily’s eccentric behavior, the people of her town seem to believe that the Grierson family is responsible for Emily’s social withdrawal. However, one sees repeatedly through the narration of this short story that the townspeople contribute to the distance between Emily and themselves by failing to recognize her personhood. The imagery that the narrator, a townsperson, uses to describe Emily noticeably lacks life. The people of her town view Emily as a representation of old southern values—rather than as a human being—and are scandalized when she doesn’t live up to noblesse oblige. Though the town’s attitude toward Emily evolves throughout the story, they never recognize her as a person, seeing her instead as a liability. The narrative as a whole suggests that the townspeople never empathize with Emily; instead they see her as a larger-than-life symbol of the old southern aristocracy, who in her old age becomes a burden to her town. As a result, she remains socially distant from other