Miss Emily
As the main character, Emily Grierson is shadowy and mysterious in the minds of the citizens in her town. She is the last of an old family that does not follow the conventions of what is expected of someone of their social standing. Emily's father controls her every movement and does not permit any of her suitors to call. Once he dies, she holds his body for three days, claiming that he is not dead.
As the story progresses, Emily interprets her life through forms of control, and this plays into her interactions with the town, and more specifically, her relationship with her suitor Homer Barron. She is prideful and reclusive, leading the townspeople to speculate on her life and to judge her based on how she interacts with Barron and
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Black
There are two references to the color black, usually representative of power, death or evil, in the story. The first speaks to the title character herself, Emily, who appears as a ''small, fat woman in black ... leaning on an ebony cane.'' The second reference also talks about Emily's appearance, but this time, in a far more sinister way, describing her as having ''cold, haughty black eyes.''
In the first reference, we find a nod to Emily's power when the town elders show up to her house to collect on her tax debt. She had previously been relieved of the burden because of the stature of her father in the community, but he is long dead. Still, her appearance in black denotes her continued power over matters in the town. Since she is also described as wearing a ''thin gold chain'' and her cane is topped with a ''tarnished gold head,'' we can see other references to her family position, though the tarnishing of the cane's head shows that, which position is wearing off.
The second reference is much easier to discern because her eyes are described as black when she shows up to the drugstore to purchase arsenic. She clearly has evil intentions with the poison. The description gives us a deeper look into the soul of a woman hell-bent on something
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According to the narrator, Emily is a haughty aristocratic who thinks she is better than most of the other townspeople. Emily uses her demeanor to bully the druggist into selling her poison. ''I want some poison,'' she demands, though she refuses to tell the druggist the purpose of her purchase. The law requires that the druggist know what the poison will be used for, so he eventually gives in and writes 'for rats' on the box.
Emily actually intends to use the arsenic to kill her suitor, Homer Barron. The box itself was emblazoned with an image of 'the skull and bones,' a common warning for containers of poison. This image foreshadows the story's final, horrible revelation: Homer has been reduced to bones and dust.
Smell
The role of the smell in "A Rose for Emily" is that it foreshadows the final realization that Homer Barron's body has been decomposing inside Emily's house for years.
Because Faulkner's narration isn't a chronological ordering of events, the foreshadowing that readers get is served up in randomly ordered pieces. The smell is actually the first major hint to readers that something isn't quite right about Emily and her
After her sweetheart left her, the people of the town saw her very little. Faulkner then tells what might be viewed as the climax of the story. He explains that one day, Miss Emily went into town and bought rat poison. By revealing this so early on in the story, it challenges the reader to use their imagination. The readers’ view of Miss Emily could now possibly be changed.
Because of the way she is raised, Miss Emily sees herself as "high society," and looks down upon those who she thinks of as commoners. This places her under the harsh scrutiny of the townspeople who keep her under a watchful eye. The only others who see Miss Emily as she sees herself are the Mayor Colonel Sartoris, and Judge Stevens.
After being reclusive for decades, Miss Emily dies in her dusty house at age 74 (305). After her burial, they force entry into the “room in that region above the stairs which no one had seen in forty years” (306). They find the “bridal suite” and remains of Homer laying “in the attitude of embrace” along with evidence that Miss Emily had also been in that bed with him (306). Readers believe that Emily kills Homer with the arsenic. In her mind, she is not going to allow him to leave her. She prefers to have him dead in her house, rather than gone
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.
This represents her father still hovering over her after his death almost controlling what she does. Emily does not listen to her father’s words of wisdom and appears to fall for a man of lesser stature. With the uncommonness of the relationship along with several other events it is evident that Miss Emily is up to something. With that said, the central theme of Faulkner’s story is madness and insanity, and with supporting evidence from the story, I will be able to prove my case. The first case to prove the theme is when her father dies.
Faulkner wrote that by law they were to state their intended use of the poison, Miss Emily never did. “‘If that's what you want. But the law requires you to tell what you are going to use it for.’ Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look at him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up.” (161).
The title itself is the first hint of symbolism that is shown throughout this short story. A rose is most often used as a symbol for love in which case during this story Homer is the "rose" for Emily, or also known as the love for Emily. Emily's father was a man who never allowed or agreed to any many being good enough for his daughter. Because of this, Emily was never able to experience love until the day she met Homer. A rose is also able to symbolize silence. This can be interpreted throughout the story that Homer was still Emily's rose, but then known as her "secret." Emily cherished and loved Homer and kept him to herself after his body was corrupted throughout time. Many women dry out roses in order to keep them forever. Emily was known to have a distorted and out of the ordinary mind, and with this said, she wanted to keep Homer forever by "drying out her rose." The room where she placed Homer Barron was described as having "rose-shaded lights" (330) which also can connect to the symbol of...
Miss Emily’s isolation is able to benefit her as well. She has the entire town believing she is a frail and weak woman, but she is very strong indeed. Everyone is convinced that she could not even hurt a fly, but instead she is capable a horrible crime, murder. Miss Emily’s actions range from eccentric to absurd. After the death of her father, and the estrangement from the Yankee, Homer Barron, she becomes reclusive and introverted. The reader can find that Miss Emily did what was necessary to keep her secret from the town. “Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years” (247).
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).
Symbolism that “A Rose for Emily” displays is Miss Emily’s taxes that represent death. First is the death of her father. The taxes are a symbol of the financial remission her father experiences, but keeps hidden from Miss Emily and the town. Thirty years later, after the initial decline of Miss Emily’s taxes, the newer generation attempts to retract the deal of the past. In the new generation, the taxes now symbolize the death of Homer Barron. Although the taxes are a deal of the past, there is an effort in Miss Emily to keep them a thing in the present. Homer Barron is her new man of the present, and his death symbolizes the taxes she insists she does not have to pay (Shmoop 3).
Emily’s father rose her with lots of authority, he might had ruined her life by not giving her the opportunity to live a normal lady/woman life; but he build a personality, character and a psycho woman. Mister Grierson was the responsible for Emily’s behavior, he thought her to always make others respect her. Homer’s actions of using her as a cover to his sexuality was not respectful at all, Emily did not know any better and poison him to death.
After all the tragic events in her life, Emily became extremely introverted. After killing Homer, Emily locked herself in and blocked everyone else out. It was mentioned, “…that was the last time we saw of Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time” (628). In fact, no one in town really got to know Miss Emily personally as she always kept her doors closed, which reflects on how she kept herself closed for all those years. Many of the town’s women came to her funeral with curiosity about how she lived, as no one had ever known her well enough to know. This was revealed at the beginning of the story when the narrator mentioned, “the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant… had seen in the last ten years”(623). Everyone in town knew of her but did not know her because she kept to herself for all those years.
...er. Upstairs in her bedroom, lie Homer’s decomposed body wearing remnants of the suit she had purchased for him many years ago. The indentation of a head on the pillow case and the strand of gray hair next to the body, gives us the impression that Emily laid there before her death. These clues give the reader a second and final rectification that Emily had necrophilia.
The plot of “A Rose for Emily” shows the later years of the main character, Emily Grierson, with flashbacks to her life interspersed between. It begins with the reader learning of her passing, developing into a story that provides insight in to her reclusive nature and past dealings with family as well as the town of Jefferson. Due to her reclusive nature and high standing in society she is often gossiped about by her fellow townsfolk. Throughout the story, the reader is told about her overbearing father, her reluctance to change her ways for the town of Jefferson, and her new love interest Homer Barron. With hints of foreshadowing and learning about Miss Emily’s past problems with letting her deceased father go, the reader finds the story ending at her funeral with the discovery of the body of Homer Barron kept in her house. Miss Emily did not want to lose her new love, so she poisons him and keeps his body around, letting her maintain a relationship with him even though he has passed on.
Wedding attire is in the room and Homer’s dead and decaying body lays stretched out on the bed, with an indention and Emily’s hair on the pillow next to him. Throughout the entire story, Emily struggles with change and not being in control; the main theme of A Rose for Emily is the concept of tradition versus change, and how change can disrupt traditions and cause people like Emily to go to extreme measures to retain