Mental Instability In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

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In the story of “A Rose for Emily” a lady who is suspected to be mentally unstable raises suspicion through her actions which foreshadow her mental instability. Throughout the story “ A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner scatters the past, present, and future by talking about her family background, inability to determine the past from the present, and her interactions with the community to foreshadow her mental instability. Emily’s family background helps to foreshadow her mental state. Emily keeping her father's body in her house shows her unusual attachment to her father and foreshadows her mental state. The doctors were “trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body.” Her abnormal closeness to her father indicates that all she …show more content…

Emily talking about Colonel Sartoris who has been dead for over 10 years shows extreme problems with her mental instability. Emily insist on the Alderman spokesmen to “see Colonel Sartoris”, she honestly believed she didn’t “have no taxes in Jefferson.” This indicates that Emily believes she’s living in the past when Colonel Sartoris rescinds her father's taxes. Emily’s mental state unravels when she told her cousins that her father was not dead. Emily “told them that her father was not dead”. Emily said this for three days which indicates she was living in the past and didn't want to come to terms that her father was dead, this shows Emily’s inability to decipher the past from the present. Emily continued to treat Homer Barron as if he were alive, even though he was dead. When the ladies walked into Emily’s house, they found a “suit, carefully folded” and a collar and tie that looked as if they had “just been removed.” Her grooming Homer after him being dead shows her confusion between the past and the present, this is shown more by the fact that she slept with his dead corpse. Through describing Emily’s confusing between past and present, Faulkner helps to illustrate her mental

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