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Characterize Miss Emily in the story of A Rose for Emily
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In life, whether it be in person, or something seen on the news one comes across something bizarre. In “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner highlights the insanity of Miss Emily multiple times. Miss Emily first seems somewhat crazy to the townspeople, because when Colonel Sartioris and her father dies she convinces herself they are not dead, after the people stop seeing Homer Miss Emily stays inside, and Homer is found almost rotted away in her bed. Throughout the story Miss Emily made herself the talk of the town due to her crazy ways of life. In the beginning, her father passes away, and she tells the people of the town he is still alive. A few days after his death she finally allows the coroner to come in and take the body away and have a proper funeral. After her father’s death she stays in the house alone for years. The …show more content…
After years of dealing with her bizarre lifestyle alone, she finally died. The townspeople said, “We did not even know she was sick” (Faulkner 4). When she died the family arrives to sort through her belongings and they go to a room that had not been opened for almost forty years. After they see the body of Homer they notice a pillow with the indentation of a head and a long piece of Miss Emily’s gray hair. Along with Homer’s body are men's clothing meant for a wedding; they are laying as if he is getting married. Miss Emily is a sick lady in more ways than her health she feels as if she has no one so she keeps Homer and locks herself away until she dies. Miss Emily is an example of how tragic events can change someone’s entire life. During the story Miss Emily’s actions show the depth of her insanity with the most prominent one keeping Homer’s body in her house for forty years. Initially, Emily is ranked top of her town at one point because of her wealth and family history. Due to all the actions she chose she became the true definition of
The author, William Faulkner, has a collection of books, short stories, and poems under his name. Through his vast collection of works, Faulkner attempts to discuss and bring awareness to numerous aspects of life. More often than not, his works were created to reflect aspects of life found within the south. Family dynamics, race, gender, social class, war, incest, racism, suicide, necrophilia, and mental illness are just some of the aspects that Faulkner explored. In “A Rose for Emily” the aspects of necrophilia and mental illness along with the societal biases that were observed in a small-town setting are seen to be a part of this captivating story. These aspects ultimately intertwine with the idea of insanity that characterizes “A Rose for Emily.
Emily was drove crazy by others expectations, and her loneliness. ““A Rose for Emily,” a story of love and obsession, love, and death, is undoubtedly the most famous one among Faulkner’s more than one hundred short stories. It tells of a tragedy of a screwy southern lady Emily Grierson who is driven from stem to stern by the worldly tradition and desires to possess her lover by poisoning him and keeping his corpse in her isolated house.” (Yang, A Road to Destruction and Self Destruction: The Same Fate of Emily and Elly, Proquest) When she was young her father chased away any would be suitors. He was convinced no one was good enough for her. Emily ended up unmarried. She had come to depend on her father. When he finally died, ...
Through the use of third person point of view and elaborate, repetitive foreshadowing, William Faulkner describes how numerous elements contributed to Miss Emily's deranged behavior in the short story, 'A Rose for Emily.' Not only does Faulkner imply paternal oppression, but there is also a clear indication of insanity that is an inherent pattern in the Grierson family. The shocking conclusion of 'A Rose for Emily' could be the result of a number of circumstances, but is most likely due to the years of isolation and the overbearing upbringing Emily experienced with her father.
Miss Emily’s character can be described as a stubborn woman. She refuses to pay her taxes, “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me” (517). After her father’s death she seems to have lost track of reality, “The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom. Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days…” (518). Her father had some kind of power over her regarding her relatio...
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).
In William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, the story follows Emily Grierson’s life after her father passes away. After her father’s death, Emily is stuck in a delusional state where time has stopped for her. In the town of Jefferson, time is progressing forward. Due to the difference in mental state between Emily and the town, a rift is created between the two. There exist two entities: Emily and the town. The distinction between the two causes Emily to be isolated. Due to being ostracized in the town, Emily denies and clings onto those who were close to her. Through the use of various literary devices, Faulkner is able to convey themes of change in the south, death and isolation.
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).
At the beginning of the story when her father died, it was mentioned that “[Emily] told [the ladies in town] that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body” (626). Faulkner reveals Emily’s dependency on her father through the death of her father. As shown in this part of the story, Emily was very attached to her father and was not able to accept that fact that he was no longer around. She couldn’t let go of the only man that loved her and had been with her for all those years. While this may seem like a normal reaction for any person who has ever lost a loved one, Faulkner emphasizes Emily’s dependence and attachment even further through Homer Barron. After her father’s death, Emily met a man name Homer whom she fell in love with. While Homer showed interest in Emily at the beginning he became uninterested later on. “Homer himself had remarked—he liked men” (627) which had caused Emily to become devastated and desperate. In order to keep Homer by her side, Emily decided to poison Homer and keep him in a bedroom in her home. It was clear that she was overly attached to Homer and was not able to lose another man that she
The short story, “A Rose for Emily,” written by William Faulkner examines the psychological downfall of Emily Grierson, an aristocratic Southern woman, and her inability to cope with changing times. Grierson’s life during her youthful years was filled with an immense amount of tragedy, which left her with the desire to hold as tight as possible to the significant things that brought her happiness. After the death of Emily’s father and the departure of her lover, she finds herself unable to cope with the dramatic change that have occurred in her life, as a result, she goes to extreme measure to ensure her new lover, Homer, never rids of her of the happiness he brings her. Furthermore, Faulkner develops the main character, Emily Grierson as having an obsession with the past due to her father’s death and her abandonment by her former lover, as a result, her obsession leads her killing Homer in order to have him as hers forever.
Miss Emily is a round character, being that she is thoroughly explained throughout the short story and there are many details about her character. Grierson effectively makes Emily seem like the odd one out in the town through many of her actions. The townspeople cannot explain how Miss Emily is able to sleep next to the corpse of Homer Barron for so many years and be so okay with it. Although one could easily tell she is not right in the head, the townspeople “did not say she was
period in her life. These parts are prime examples of how Faulkner jumps back and forth throughout Emily’s lifetime. Part one begins with Emily’s funeral while part two begins “thirty years before”, “two years after her fathers death and a short time after her sweetheart”, Homer Barron. (93) Part three begins with her meeting Homer. This is interesting because the part before takes place after he dies. This also shows how Faulkner keeps one guessing with his unorthodox plot order. The next part talks of how Emily is planning to supposedly kill herself. It tells of how she buys the...
Miss Emily's relationship with the town was damaged and unable to be fixed. She had connections to older generations that live in her town but, the new generation has not learned to like her as she hardly left her house, rarely making appearances. Miss Emily was not afraid to speak her mind when approached, even to the authority figures. “‘See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson!”’ (Faulkner 1). Miss Emily was very independent and was not a force to be messed with from being alone for so long,
The setting is described as a community that places her on a pedestal. “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town” supports this. The climax of the story occurs when the tone turns more devastating. Unaccompanied after her father’s death, she is an element of pity for the close residents. Her father raised her as an overbearing guardian who would not let her socialize with the public. As one could imagine, losing the only person you had in your life could be rather disturbing. The reader can feel the distress and agony, comparable to “Bartleby, the Scrivener”. Soon after she falls for a contractor who worked outside her house. This then changes the attitude to be more optimistic. She admirers him because of his outgoing nature and good sense of humor. He develops an interest in Emily. Despite his qualities, the townspeople view him as a deprived scandalous person. He disappears in Emily’s house and decomposes in an attic bedroom after she kills him. The reader could be ultimately shocked, and to make matters worse, her father’s remains are there as well. The story states Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.” Emily’s secret,
In William Faulkner’s story, “A Rose for Emily”, the narrator shares a message of ill-fated love and maladaptation to the loss of love by Emily Grierson. The story is a tragic depiction of a young women who is prevented from dating by her father because he feels that no one is suitable his daughter. Emily also has to overcome the stigma of having a great aunt who has a mental illness. Over thirty, unmarried, father-less, and an instrument of society, Emily falls for Homer Barron, a northern day laborer, who is new to the community. He is seen by the local society as being on a lower social level than Emily and the relationship is shunned by the local elite.
She was sheltered her entire life by her controlling father, keeping her from making her own decisions. She lived a life independent from the rest of the town due to her aristocracy. She was held to a certain standard by the town. Once her father died, she was alone and had no clear example of what true love looked like since her father was very possessive over her. His possessiveness over Emily permits itself to how she displays love, resulting in Homer’s death (Heller). Soon, a man by the name of Homer Barron entered her life and filled her emotional void. He was described as a handsome, “big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face” (Faulkner 32). Although Barron was from the lower class, Emily fell in love with him. He became her oral fixation of comfort. Homer acted as a replacement for Emily’s father, and he adopted the same overprotective, controlling attitude her father had for her. When Homer wanted to leave Emily, Emily felt that she was was losing control over him, leading her to kill him. Even in death, Emily found a way for her and Homer to continue to be together. She kept his body in the basement and slept in the same bed as him as if nothing had changed. Emily’s denial and acceptance of death and change are the repercussions of her upbringing. In addition to her refusal to change, she makes sure nothing does change.There is a correlative idea called Transactional Analysis, which consists of three prongs: persecutor, victim, hero. She took on the same characteristics of her father. The confined child becomes the possessor. How Mr. Grierson treated Emily is ultimately how she treated Homer. The roles of rescuer, persecutor and victim switch between the three