A Rose For Emily Death Decay Essay

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Recommended: Womens roles in a rose for emily

Kendavid Stenhouse
Dr. Perkins
English 204 A
5 December 2017
Death Decay and Decomposition
The term gothic literature refers to, “a writing about the dark, irrational elements of experience and of the mind. It explores the extreme mental states characterized by guilt, panic, fear, anxiety, obsession, paranoia, and claustrophobia, while frequently also attempting to assuage [satisfy] them” (Otto). In “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, there are many forms of gothic elements prevalent throughout the story.
Emily’s house; an ugly and desolated shack, was once seen as a beautiful estate compiling of existence and hue but, deteriorated after the death of Emily’s father leading to the death of Emily spiritually. In similarity, the gothic elements …show more content…

With the thought that no one else but the father was good enough; “Her passionate, almost sexual relationship with her dead father…[compels] her to distrust the living body of Homer and to kill him so that he will resemble the dead father she can never forget” (Towner). Emily’s father never thought any man was good enough for her and was never able to experience love besides the love her and her father rationed for each other. Meeting Homer was a way for Emily to replace the love she possessed for her father, but Miss Emily never thoroughly overcame his death. Emily became devoted with endearment and infatuation towards Homer as time persisted. “[In] death, he was unable to leave her” (Priddy), for her poisoning Homer was an endeavoring way to never be along. Emily was looking for a way to resemble her father’s dead body she had grown to endear and learned to live without; “We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and…knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will” …show more content…

Horror and death help to create interesting characteristics, motifs, and traits while the rose is another element that adds romance and love to the story. The gothic elements in the story help develop sanity, reconstruction, isolation and a feminist standpoint including the townspeople derogative outlook upon Miss Emily.

Works Cited
Otto, Peter. "Gothic Fiction." Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850, edited by Christopher John Murray, Routledge, 1st edition, 2003. Credo Reference, https://search-credoreference.com.ezproxy.smcsc.edu/content/entry/routromanticera/gothic_fiction/0?institutionId=5472. Accessed 05 Dec 2017.
“‘A Rose for Emily’/ The Evolution of the Gothic Genre.” The Dark Side of Literature, 11 Oct.
2013, mankerhy.wordpress.com/a-rose-for-emily-the-evolution-of-the-gothic-genre/.
Priddy, Anna, and Harold Bloom. Bloom's How to Write about William Faulkner.

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