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A rose for emily william character analysis
A rose for emily william character analysis
A rose for emily william character analysis
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William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily is a story that talks about a person’s status in a community and how that person is treated within the community. Miss Emily’s status as a historical figure and a lady kept the people in the community from saying or making her fix things like the smell or appearance or her house. But, what is most intriguing to me in the story is that they never made legal actions towards her to make her pay taxes. This analysis will explore Why exactly is miss Emily not forced to pay taxes or forced to deal with any repercussions from not paying taxes? With Miss. Emily being a lady and her status as a historical figure and time this happened I believe she was treated differently. Even though Faulkner’s story is set in older time period the story still has a lot to do with things like taxes and things that we deal with on a normal basis. In 1984 Colonel Sartoris made up a tale that Miss. Emily’s father had loaned money to the town. When time moved on and the next generation became mayors and part of the towns government this tale began to cause dissatisfaction. Several attempts were made to collect taxes. Every time a they got a …show more content…
Emily alone that they thought she was crazy, and this scared people. In the beginning they only felt sorry for Miss. Emily, but as the story progresses things become a little weirder. After her father’s death it took three days for her to finally allow them inside to get him. Even though this made them feel sorry for Miss. Emily this proves that she was experiencing some emotional problems. Jack Schering states that “Emily became an emotional orphan in search of the father who had been taken from her.” ( Jack Schering page 400) I am sure that with dealing with all that she had going on she came off as a crazy old lady, Especially to the younger generations. Little did we know though that at the end of the story we would find out the extant of mental
After her father’s death, the old town government officials exempted Miss Emily from paying taxes, but when new officials came in, they wanted her to pay. “Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily’s father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying.” She did not know any different and did not want things to change, but everyone else pictured it as her being better than them. “I have no taxes in Jefferson,” is what she repeatedly told the officials that came to talk to
In Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, there is a constant theme of protection for Emily Grierson, because she was a woman living in the south after the civil war and the requirements that were placed on women enable to be honorable. That is to say that, women needed to be protected by the men of the community during that time in history and women’s actions were constantly under watch to see if a woman was honorable and worthy of protection or not. Within the story, there are many instances in which this is shown. Faulkner also shows the reader a gender split between the men and women and how they felt towards Emily.
In, 'A Rose for Emily', Emily is being kept and locked away from the world. Her father keeps her isolated with only the company of their servant. The people of the town “remembered all the young men her father had driven away” (Faulkner 219). Because of this, Emily grew well past the age of being courted and finding a husband. After he died, she was left even more alone than before. Her family was not really present in her life ever since they and her father had an argument and did not keep in touch. The people of the town also helped with the isolation of Emily. The people have always regarded the family as strange and mysterious keeping their distance. Emily had “a vague resemblance to those angels in the colored church windows- sort of tragic and serene” (Faulkner 220). She did not leave the house often and when she did, ...
Woman from town came over to visit and give there condolansis to her but shockingly Emily only said he was not dead. (pg98). This was a major point of the story were change is seen as a real problem for Emily. She kept her dad’s dead body in her home for three days teeling herself and everyone else that he was still alive. Eventally force had to be taken by the police and the body was put in a grave. It is not normal for someone to act like this but also her dad was all she ever knew. He ran off men and his own family, so when he died she went into a deep state of denial and refused to accept the fact she had lost the only person she loved.
Faulkner and Ellison had contrasting views on the south about how people with differences were treated and whether or not the south’s changes were positive, however they both view the changing south as inevitable. In Faulkner’s south people who are different are not punished but they are protected from the public embarrassment of their honor. In “A Rose for Emily” Colonel Sartoris forgives Miss Emily of the taxes she owes the city of Jefferson.
She is portrayed throughout the story as a hermit, only being seen outside her home a handful of times. In the beginning of the story, Miss Emily refuses to pay her taxes as she denies she has any taxes to pay. “ ‘See Colonel Sartoris.’ (Colonel Sartoris has been dead almost ten years.) ‘I have no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!’ The Negro appeared. ‘Show these gentlemen out.’ (Faulkner 31)” She believes that she is responsible for no taxes, as the Colonel stated that her father had lent money to the town years ago; however the townspeople still arrive at her home to collect the taxes. She tells them to ask the Colonel, though he has been dead for almost ten years. She refuses to acknowledge the reality around
For that reason, it is easy for readers to assume that Emily has separation anxiety. In this story by William Faulkner, she takes what modern day society would consider drastic measures to make sure the two never leave her. An example of this is offered when Emily Grierson’s father passes away due to old age. Emily is so attached to her father that she keeps his body in the house for several days after his death, pretending, most likely for her own sake, that he is still alive. In fact, the townspeople proclaim, “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.
Miss Emily was brought into the spotlight the same moment as her father died. Being the last remaining person from the high ranking Grierson family in town, she became the new ambassador of the old days. The people welcomed her with open arms, without actually knowing anything more about her than her admirable name. Her father's death also meant that Miss Emily's unrevealed secret was brought into the grave. It is well known that insanity is a hereditary disposition, and Miss Emily's great-aunt, lady Wyatt, had "gone absolutely crazy"(80) before she passed away a couple of years earlier. Emily's father had since then dissociated from that branch of the family, as if to run away from a dishonorable influence. I believe that he was aware of her condition, and he therefore had kept her from social life and driven away the long road of suitors to prevent her from causing another scandal, which could spot his and his family's remaining reputation.
He was the only man in her life, and after his death, her behavior became even more unnatural. However, her father's death cannot be seen as the only cause of Miss Emily's insanity. Miss Emily's behavior was also influenced by her own expectations of herself, the townspeople's lack of authority over her, and her neighbor's infatuation with her. The narrator tells us the Griersons had always thought too highly of themselves and no doubt Emily shared this opinion with her belated family. After her father's death, she was the last of the Griersons.
From the beginning of Emily's life she is separated from those she needed most, and the mother's guilt tears at the seams of a dress barely wrinkled. Emily was only eight months old when her father left her and her mother. He found it easier to leave than to face the responsibilities of his family's needs. Their meager lifestyle and "wants" (Olsen 601) were more than he was ready to face. The mother regrettably left the child with the woman downstairs fro her so she could work to support them both. As her mother said, "She was eight months old I had to leave her daytimes" (601). Eventually it came to a point where Emily had to go to her father's family to live a couple times so her mother could try to stabilize her life. When the child returned home the mother had to place her in nursery school while she worked. The mother didn't want to put her in that school; she hated that nursery school. "It was the only place there was. It was the only way we could be toge...
Emily’s isolation is evident because after the men that cared about her deserted her, either by death or simply leaving her, she hid from society and didn’t allow anyone to get close to her. Miss Emily is afraid to confront reality. She seems to live in a sort of fantasy world where death has no meaning. Emily refuses to accept or recognize the death of her father, and the fact that the world around her is changing.
As time goes on Emily grows up, her mother criticizes and blames herself for the distance between the relationships. It is causing tension in their already rocky relationship. The mother is obviously suffering from guilt on how Emily was raised and the unpleasant memories of the past. Emily was also suffering. We see her shyness towards those who care for her. She was a very depressed teen. She had quietness in her daily duties, and her feelings of not being good enough towards herself. She always felt that she was extremely ugly and not smart compared to her younger sister, Susan. She thought she was perfect. She was the typical “Shirley Temple” image.
William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” uses a series of flashbacks to address Miss Emily’s misfortunes. The story begins at Miss Emily’s funeral which everyone in town had attended. Years after her father had passed away; years after taxes had been suspended. She claimed that after he father had loaned a large amount to the town that she owed no taxes in Jefferson, “ I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel explained it to me. Perhaps one of you
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.
I agree that Miss Emily died a lonely woman. I also agree that her lonely death was a result of how she lived before and after her father passed. While there was a family dispute, it was because of her father and it seems that even after her father passed she never tried to repair it.