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Abdul Colen Eng 102 Prof. Formichella October 1, 2015 William Faulkners’ “A Rose for Emily” is a short story of a lady named Emily Grierson who had to face many strange difficulties in every steps of her life. She was an old lady who used to live in a small town named Jefferson. Emily is an outsider controlling and limiting the town access to her true identity by staying hidden. Emily is a very mysterious and muted character. Within the story, it’s stated that Emily was a very traditional person. From the introduction of the story it is said by the narrator “Miss Emily had been a tradition” (Faulkner 1), which proves that she herself is a traditional person. It has always been a mystery that how Emily led such an reclusive life because Emily did not …show more content…
Emily wanted to live happily ever after with Homor. “Homor himself had remarked—he liked men” (Falkner 4). She loved Homor so much that she would not accept the rejection and killed him with poison. The death of Homor is the result of her stubbornness. She did not want to let Homor to leave her because she never loved anyone before due to her overprotective father. Emily wanted to get close to Homor under any circumstance dead or alive. Attraction to a cadaver, is a prime symbol of Necrophilia. In all likelihood, her loneliness and stubbornness caused these actions. After the death of Emily the investigators went through the locked room, they found a “fleshless” body (Faulker 5) lying on the bed and also “saw a long strand of iron-gray hair” (Falkner 5) on the pillow which proves that Emily had continued to sleep in the bed after Homors death. Miss Emily was suffering from Necrophilia still loving and embracing him after his death. Emily had another occurrence of this in the story when her father died. She kept her father’s cadaver for three days and did not want to allow a proper burial. The same habits surfaced with Homor
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.
Emily was not what you would call the average murderer. She was strange however, after her own death (which is known to reader in the very first line of the story) the townspeople described her as '…a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town';(73). When her father died she would not let them take the body for three days, now that's pretty strange. The people in town at the time didn't think she was crazy, they explained her actions like this, '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.'; (75) Here is the first indicator that her motives for killing her only love Homer Baron are founded on an emotional type of basis. Her father believed that no one was ever good enough for his daughter, and because she never got close to anyone she didn't know how to let go either, she never experienced that kind of love you get when you meet ...
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).
Her necrophilia is realized first when she refused the death of her father as she desperately clings to the father figure who disciplined her into loneliness. It was the only form of love she knew. It is once realized when Homer dies, however, this time it is with her hands that death has come upon it. She almost actually controlled it. She denied the changes, the possibilities of Homer leaving her, of refusing to marry her, by cutting his timeline—preserving him in death, effectively. Emily and Homer’s weird cohabitation divulges Emily’s upsetting effort to marry life and death. However, death ultimately triumphs.
Emily had a servant so that she did not have to leave the house, where she could remain in solitary. The front door was never opened to the house, and the servant came in through the side door. Even her servant would not talk to anyone or share information about Miss Emily. When visitors did come to Emily’s door, she became frantic and nervous as if she did not know what business was. The death of Emily’s father brought about no signs of grief, and she told the community that he was not dead. She would not accept the fact that she had been abandoned because of her overwhelming fear. Emily’s future husband deserted her shortly after her father’s death. These two tragic events propelled her fear of abandonment forward, as she hired her servant and did not leave the house again shortly after. She also worked from home so that she never had a reason to leave. Emily did not have any family in the area to console in because her father had run them off after a falling out previously. She also cut her hair short to remind her of a time when she was younger and had not been deserted. Even though people did not live for miles of Emily Grierson, citizens began
As a child, Emily was unable make friends or even play outside because her father held his family to a much higher standard than other townspeople “The Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner 36). Emily’s father, selfishly held Emily back from living, loving, and freedom. She was unable to find a soul mate because her father believed that “None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such” (Faulkner 36). Because of this, Emily stuck close to the only man she’s ever known like a newborn to its mother. Emily and her father had such a close bond that when he died, for days she refused to believe he was dead, and she also refused to let the townspeople dispose of the body. For the townspeople, Emily’s reaction to her father’s death was quite normal, but for readers it was our first glimpse at her necrophilia.
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
Emily had a close relationship to her father, and although the cause of his passing is left unsaid, it is made clear
Emily and her family held themselves to a higher standard than which they should have and now Emily suffers from it. She does not understand her role in the new society that she is currently living in. Emily also doesn’t realize that her reputation is not that same as it once was. In the story she was seen as “a tradition, a duty, and a care” to the people of the town while she was alive.
He continued his duties as servant by allowing the women into the house at the time of Emily’s death. He also continues his duties in her death by remaining silent. By not explaining to the women or anyone, he keeps Emily’s secrets as he walks out the
In “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner imitates associative Southern storytelling style as an unnamed first-person narrator speaks for the entire town of Jefferson, relating what all the townspeople know or believe. When Emily Grierson, a single young woman living with her father, can’t have the man of her dreams, she decides to take his life, and have him til her death. Emily Grierson was born 1861 in the small town of Jefferson, Mississippi. Never married but had a passion for romance. In the story, Emily is a symbol for her town.
Emily is directly depicted as “a tradition” and “a duty”—she is unchanging. Notably, this is reflected by her denial that her father had joined the dearly departed and her unsettling knack for necrophilia. She does not want to let go of her significant other because he is all she has left, she harbors his body because she does not know how to cope with change, much like Eveline. Emily is the Eveline that remained with her father that would later be described as “with nothing left she would have to cling to that which had robbed her” (Faulkner 3). She fails when seeking affection within someone other than her father.
Emily is in complete denial about the death of her father for days before she begins grieving. Also, she reacts to Homer leaving her by murdering him. And as it is discovered upon her own death, she slept with his skeleton. Evidence of this presents itself at the end of the story, “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” (par. 60).
...she believed might be the only way to keep the man she loved from leaving her. Out of desperation for human love, when she realized Homer would leave her she murdered him so she could at least cling to his body. In his death, Emily finally found eternal love that no one could every take from her.
None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. And in fact we see that her father drove away would be boyfriends with a whip. So he was so protective of his daughter that no one ever got near her, and really her father cut off any hope of her having a future with a husband. Her father is too controlling, perhaps, to let her go. And maybe Emily herself is pretty controlling, because look how she treated people about the taxes, and the smell also.