Themes In A Rose For Emily

713 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Main character in rose for emily

How To Raise a Murderer What kind of socialization could create a person who is capable of murdering someone and then living with the corpse as if nothing had ever happened? Could this style of upbringing have set the fate of Emily long before she could even change it? Some might say oh it is just the craziness coming out because, “remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy,” indicates that there is a strong chance she is too. (Faulkner 12) William Faulkner exhibits through his short story, “A Rose for Emily,” how an overprotected life can set someone up for failure through the use of theme, conflict, and setting. There is an inability to accept that the world is heading towards progression because Emily is …show more content…

So, to fill the shoes of her father she soon begins to see Homer Barron. At first the towns people are happy for them, but soon gain a dislike for the relationship because they have not married and they feel like Emily is setting a bad example for the younger generation. However, Emily clearly wants to get married to Homer because she goes out and buys a mens toilet set with his initials engraved in them. Homer on the other hand does not want to be married because it is stated that, “Homer himself had remarked—he like men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elk’s Club—that he was not a marrying man.” (Faulkner 14) Emily can not stand the idea of being left alone so she murders Homer to ensure that her controlled lifestyle can remain intact. From the short story there is an overall questioning and curious aspect involved with the characters and this is intensified by the setting of the story. Emily lives with no one besides a servant who does not speak to anyone when he goes into town. The house that she lives in is also one of the very first houses built in Jefferson and “no one save an old man servant—a combined gardner and cook—had seen in at least ten years.” (Faulkner 10) To be placed somewhere that Emily is isolated from the rest of the townspeople gives her the ability to murder someone without anyone finding

Show More
Related

  • Compare And Contrast A Rose For Emily And The Tell-Tale Heart

    838 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner both main characters are portrayed as irrational and are isolated from reality. The narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” murders an elderly man, as he is fearful of the man’s eye. Emily Grierson in “A Rose for Emily” lives secluded from society, until she marries a man, Homer. She ultimately kills Homer in his bed and leaves his body to decompose for many years. Both the narrator in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Emily Grierson in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” deny reality so vehemently that they isolate themselves from reality. Their isolation and denial of reality cause both to commit murder.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Conformity In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

    1524 Words  | 4 Pages

    Emily ultimately resists social conformity when she passes away. Between the time when Homer disappeared and Miss. Emily’s death, she never left her house. The community would only see her negro servant enter and leave the house. During this time Miss. Emily fell ill and soon pasted away. She died in the downstairs bedroom that was filled with dust and mold. When her cousins came to host her funeral, they noticed the upstairs in her house was boarded shut and had not been seen by anyone expect Miss. Emily in forty years. They waited until after her funeral before they opened the upstairs. They were shocked when they found a dead mans body lying in the upstairs bedroom. Faulkner said, “What as left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt” (Faulkner, 7). They soon realized the dead body belonged to Homer Barron. After a closer look they noticed the pillow next to his still had the indention of a head, and they “saw a long strand of iron-gray hair” (Faulkner, 7). By seeing this gray hair, they realize Miss. Emily killed Homer, and had been sleeping with him every night. Miss. Emily killed Homer to trap him from leaving her, like she expected him to do. This was Miss. Emily’s was of ultimately resisting

    Read More

  • Theme Of Suspense In A Rose For Emily

    942 Words  | 2 Pages

    “A window that had been dark was now lit and Emily sat in it, the light behind her” (P.130). Emily was known in the town although people had no idea about what she really did; just like her sitting in the window, you knew she was there but all you could see was her shadow. Faulkner manipulated Emily and her relationship with the community along with her lover to create an overwhelming feeling of suspense. This feeling was strategically kept throughout the entire story. From Emily keeping her father’s dead body to her buying the arson to kill Homer.

    Read More

  • Internal Controls In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

    1799 Words  | 4 Pages

    Through this quote, it is observed that the psychodynamic perspective believes that a lack of controls being in place and weak internal controls can contribute to criminal activity. Emily comes from a wealthy upbringing, but the story describes her father as being a man who would chase away any other men who were interested in Emily. He seemed to be the only man who was allowed in her life. Being that he was the only man in her life, it only makes sense that after his death she would deny that he was dead and hold onto the body; she had no other men to hold onto. In the short story, it mentioned, “we remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will” (Faulkner, 2). This was the sad truth and everyone in the town knew it too. It can be inferred that she had some aggressive energy towards the townspeople when they wanted to bury the body and that this could be partially blamed on her father’s parenting. Once her father was dead and buried, she became involved with Homer Barron. Due to the way her

    Read More

  • A Rose for Emily

    424 Words  | 1 Pages

    Then when Emily's father died, she became more detached than before. Since she had only her father to rely on, she did not want to admit that he was dead at first. Until it came down to the law and force, she did what was to be expected when she had nothing left: she "[clung] to that which had robbed her" (Faulkner 77). Once they took the body, Emily had to face the fact that she was truly alone. She then got a manservant to depend upon and support her. The manservant was seen "going in and out with a market basket" (Faulkner 76) but she hardly came out of the house herself. Her father's death left her to become more concealed.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Isolation And Death In A Rose For Emily

    1347 Words  | 3 Pages

    She is also somebody that the townspeople feel they have the need to care for because they see her as part of the town’s history, the narrator describes her as, “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town…” (Faulkner, I) She was “tradition” and “duty”, they felt an obligation of keeping her and not letting her go because she was a historical figure to them. She also represents death because even though she wanted everything to be left the same, she was physically changing and getting old, the older you get the closer you get to death. Her hair was turning gray and the narrator says her body, “looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water…” (Faulkner, I), a “motionless body” makes you think of a death person. When her father died, she was not able to believe that he was dead and wanted to keep him in the house. She could not let go of her death

    Read More

  • A Rose For Emily Rhetorical Analysis Essay

    617 Words  | 2 Pages

    The reader learns later in the story that Miss Emily indeed is stubborn. First, she refuses to let the townspeople bury her dead father, and then she kills Homer and refuses to let go of him. She holds onto him even when he no longer lives. The house she lives in directly parallels Miss Emily. The use of the word “decay” also enables the reader to see that Miss Emily deteriorates both mentally and physically as time passes. This correlates to Miss Emily's inability to let go of her father and Homer. Once again, Faulkner uses the house to give the reader an idea of Miss Emily's

    Read More

  • Comparing Susan Glaspell's Trifles And A Rose For Emily

    1115 Words  | 3 Pages

    After her father’s death Emily has no one, so when she finds Homer she grows fearful that he will leave her, so she kills him instead.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Control In A Rose For Emily

    414 Words  | 1 Pages

    By managing to appear as “Poor Emily”, seemingly fitting into an old, deteriorating woman look, she was given, and had taken, full control of all major aspects of her life. Controlling decisions that were not completely hers, people that had no obligation to follow her, and controlling the the death of her lover. She displays an unhealthy power that she had inherited from her overbearing father, taking control through position, and

    Read More

  • Insanity In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

    611 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

    1000 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emily's isolation from the rest of the town, their indifference, as well as the lack of initiation was the reason of her own tragic death. The town knew that "old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at last" (30), and they were afraid of having the same end as her great-aunt, but they just turned their back on her and let her be because it was the easiest thing to do. They also "knew that there was a room ... which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced" (34), but they didn't do anything and Emily was left alone to meet her destiny, and in that sense, they are accomplices to Homer's murder.

    Read More

  • Control In A Rose For Emily

    679 Words  | 2 Pages

    Within the story, Emily has the need to control loved ones from leaving her. Unfortunately for Homer Barron, Emily could not accept that Homer did not want to be with her, which led to his expiration. “What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed which he lay; and upon him, the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient biding dust” (1109). To control Homer from moving on and finding someone else to love, Emily believed killing him was the only way to be together forever, even if they could not get married. With all the year’s homer laid dead in Emily’s bed, this was her way of controlling homer from leaving, and controlling the loneliness she felt that she could never get rid of because of the controlling lifestyle she continued to

    Read More

  • Emily Grierson Obsession

    925 Words  | 2 Pages

    This was apparent when she reached the age of thirty and still did not have a proper suitor due to her father dismissing potential mates. After her father’s death, Emily was further isolated because the whole town was happier seeing her fall from grace than comforting her in her time of loss. Emily’s father played a huge role in sheltering her from the world, which in return was a major causality of creating her insanity. It is demonstrated that Emily tries to ignore the town’s judgement as she started seeing Homer by demonstrating an imperious attitude towards the village’s shaming as “she carried her head high enough-even when [she was] we believed that she was fallen” (Faulkner 33). Emily’s isolation from society is similar to the way modern day celebrities are treated because people often forget that they are human too. This lack of compassion towards fellow humans often leads to mental breakdowns, as observed when Emily poisons Homer. If the townsfolk would have treated Emily the same, she might have been able to seek out medical help before she killed her lover. Due to the town’s negligence to reprimand Emily for anything, she was able to get away with numerous crimes, such as murder and tax

    Read More

  • Literary Elements in A Rose For Emily

    1692 Words  | 4 Pages

    In "A Rose for Emily," William Faulkner's use of setting and characterization foreshadows and builds up to the climax of the story. His use of metaphors prepares the reader for the bittersweet ending. A theme of respectability and the loss of, is threaded throughout the story. Appropriately, the story begins with death, flashes back to the past and hints towards the demise of a woman and the traditions of the past she personifies. Faulkner has carefully crafted a multi-layered masterpiece, and he uses setting, characterization, and theme to move it along.

    Read More

  • Curiosity Killed the Cat

    761 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...retly married and that Homer “had gone to prepare for Miss Emily’s coming,” they are always speculating about her life (132). Because of this curiosity, the reader is in suspense as to why she becomes a hermit and is hardly ever seen in public after Homer is gone. Faulkner lets the reader in on Miss Emily’s little secret at the very end of the story, after the funeral and Miss Emily is gone and buried.

    Read More

More about Themes In A Rose For Emily

Open Document