Emily Grierson's Tradition

Luke Maffia
Mrs. Lonergan
English 9A
4 January 2015
In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee depicts a few southern, female characters to have influence on the protagonist, Scout. These female characters are Aunt Alexandra, Mrs. Dubose and Calpurnia. Scout is a tomboy who wears shorts, plays with her older brother, Jem and hates being called a girl. For example, Jem said, “Scout, I'm tellin' you for the last time, shut your trap or go home--I declare to the Lord you're gettin' more like a girl every day!" With that, I had no option but to join them.” (Lee 69).” With this, in William Faulkner’s short story A Rose For Emily, he depicts a woman named Emily Grierson who goes through many struggles in her life like losing her father, being

an old soul in a modernizing town and killing her boyfriend because didn’t want to marry her. She was misunderstood by the townspeople and was the center of gossip among them. In some ways, these women of the south are alike even though they come from different places, with different backgrounds and different personalities.
As an illustration, Miss Emily is alike to Aunt Alexandra. Both women have a very strong and prominent sense of pride. Aunt Alexandra is very proud of her family name, Finch. She makes her decisions based on what it would do for the family name and to make sure the Finch name doesn’t earn a bad reputation based on silly actions. She also shows her defiant sense of pride by trying to make Scout more ladylike in the novel. Aunt Alexandra arrives at the Finch house to turn her into a woman because she believes that Scout acting like a boy is a disgrace. For Example, Scout on Aunt Alexandra, “Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed to be doing things that required pants.” (Lee 108). Miss Emily is like this as well. She is so full of pride that she ends up killing her boyfriend when he wouldn’t marry her and it would seem like they were actually married.
Furthermore, the two women also have another mutual trait, their sense of tradition.

Miss Emily is the old fashioned person in a town that’s evolving to become more updated. The story states, “It was a big, squarish frame house ..., set on what had once been our most select street. ...only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores.” (Faulkner). In another part of the story, Miss Emily never paid her taxes and when someone came to her house to discuss the tax problem, she said Colonel Sartoris, the once mayor of the town, didn’t require her to pay her taxes. The problem was he had been dead for 10 years. For Aunt Alexandra, she is obsessed with “old family” and traditional views. Shows this by coming to the Finch house and trying to make Scout more ladylike. With these things in mind, it’s clear that Miss Emily and Aunt Alexandra are both similar, demonstrating the same traits and viewing at the same

perspective.
In addition to this, Miss Emily is reminiscent of another character in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. Mrs. Dubose and Miss Emily are alike in the sense that they both rarely show their faces outside of their homes. Towards the end of her life, Mrs. Dubose was bedridden because she was succumbing to her long, strenuous battle between her and her morphine addiction. On the other hand, Miss Emily never comes out of her house due to murdering her estranged boyfriend whom she wanted to marry. It says in the story, “And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron. And Miss Emily for some time. The Negro man went in and out with the market basket, but the front door remained closed.” (Faulkner). These two characters are also alike in the sense that they are both misunderstood by other people around them. For Mrs. Dubose, Scout thinks she’s just a mean and judgemental old lady while Atticus describes her as strong due to her struggle with morphine addiction. On Miss Emily’s side, everything is misunderstood about her. People thought she was going to kill herself with arsenic she bought, the townspeople believing her boyfriend is gay because he “drinks with younger men” and “is not the marrying type.” (Faulkner) and trying to harbor her father’s dead body because she couldn’t part with him. In short, the events that happen in each story and the views towards these characters relate Mrs. Dubose and Miss Emily to each other.
Moreover, the final character in To Kill A Mockingbird that relates to Miss Emily in A Rose for Emily, is Calpurnia. These characters are similar because of their strong personalities. Even though the townspeople paint Miss Emily as a wilted flower, she still holds strong. “She carried her head high enough -- even when we believed she was fallen,” (Faulkner) the narrator describes in the story. At a time when there were rumors going around about her love life and her father recently dying, she still kept her dignity and strength held high. For Calpurnia, she exemplifies strength in everything she does. This is Scout’s description of her, "Calpurnia was something else again. She was all angles and bones … her hand was wide as a bed slat and twice as hard. ... Our battles were epic and one-sided. Calpurnia always won, … and I had felt her tyrannical presence as long as I could remember." (Lee 6). Calpurnia is a figure of strict authority in Scout’s life and won’t give in for anything that Scout tries to finagle. Under these circumstances, Miss Emily and Calpurnia are similar in their profound radiation of strength.
As has been mentioned, there are a few characters in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird that coincide with Miss Emily Grierson in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily.

Aunt Alexandra is similar to her because of their family views and traditional way of living, Mrs. Dubose is alike to Miss Emily because they both never leave the house and are both misunderstood by their fellow neighbors. Lastly, Calpurnia is comparable to Miss Emily because they both exert strength and never show any sign of weakness. I see a parallel in both authors work, having similar women being depicted in the stories but with different intentions. Faulkner’s is to show the decay of a frail women who goes through many hardships but Lee’s purpose for these women is to inspire a young girl named Scout, who is growing up, realizing different things going on around her and trying to make sense of them. With this, I wonder if Miss Emily would be a good role model for Scout. Who

knows?