Emily Grierson from the short story, “A Rose for Emily,” is a woman with an unsettling childhood. She was controlled and cloistered by her affluent father. Her father’s imperious attitude towards her, mentally abused her adolescent mind. Emily’s father was always there with her through social situations that she should have experienced on her own, so she became a recluse. She did not know how to cope with her father’s death and live a stable life. After her father passed, she developed Attachment Disorder, which led to Major Depression throughout the story. The town was very critical of Emily because she never associated with anyone outside her house. The passing of her father left Emily emotionally disturbed. She kept her father’s corpse in the basement and lay next to it. Emily’s father never let her date anyone, so she never was able to form a relationship with anybody. As a result of this, Emily has Reactive Attachment Disorder, which is the lack of attachment to a caregiver and the inability to form …show more content…
Her father did not keep in touch with the rest of the family. Emily was missing that figure that her father had been her all those years. When she starts dating Homer Barron, the townspeople were happy for her and thought she had finally moved on. Emily was not with Homer so they could get married and live happily ever after, she was with him because she needed a male figure by her side like her father once was. Since Emily’s father governed her social life and prevented her from forming relationships with others as a child, she did not know how to fraternize with Homer. No one has seen Homer go outside of Emily’s house after he first went in. Emily held him hostage in the basement until she ultimately poisoned him and laid beside him like she laid next to her father. Emily’s early years were damaged by her father and rendered her emotionally
One can clearly imagine the timid Emily standing behind her towering father. "Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip." Emily's father not only dominates the portrait but dominates Emily as well. Emily's father controls her every move. She cannot date anyone unless her father approves, yet he never approves of any of the few men that do show interest in her. "None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such." Unable to find a good enough suitor, Emily has no choice but to stay and care for her governing father.
After Emily's father dies, we find her becoming involved with a gay man named Homer Baron who she probably believes she will eventually marry. It is her continual relying on a male figure that gets Emily into this situation. It is the setting in which she lye that has this impact on her thought and understanding.
Emily’s father rose her with lots of authority, he might had ruined her life by not giving her the opportunity to live a normal lady/woman life; but he build a personality, character and a psycho woman. Mister Grierson was the responsible for Emily’s behavior, he thought her to always make others respect her. Homer’s actions of using her as a cover to his sexuality was not respectful at all, Emily did not know any better and poison him to death.
Homer had lived in the present, and Emily eventually conquered that. Emily’s family was a monument of the past; Emily herself was referred to as a “fallen monument.” She was a relic of Southern gentility and past values. She had been considered fallen because she had been proven susceptible to death and decay like the rest of the world. As for the importance of family, Emily was really close to her father. He was very protective of her and extremely dominating.
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).
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.
Attachment is described as the close emotional bond between two people and Attachment Theory (AT) generally concentrates on the early bonds in a person’s development as well as the effects that these bonds have on later socio-emotional development. While emphasis on attachment as an antecedent for future behavior and personality has decreased somewhat in recent years, it is interesting to note that the DSM IV-TR includes a “reactive attachment disorder” which it states is caused when extreme circumstances prevent proper attachment development.
Emily faces a devastating fear of abandonment in “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner. This is exemplified throughout the work using many details and examples. Emily Grierson never accepts the abandonment that she is facing and creates mental incapabilities as a result.
Along with the passing of her father Emily is then allowed the freedom to finally think for herself and then comes Homer Barron, a man whose Emily’s father would have disapproved of if he was still alive. As Donald Akers stated that Emily dating a northerner as a, “reasonable, explanation for her relationship with Homer would be that is her way of rebelling against her dead father. During his lifetime, her father prevented her from having an “acceptable” suitor. Thus, she rebels by associating with a man her father would have considered a pariah: a Yankee day-laborer” (“A Rose for Emily”). That excerpt suggests since Homer was a Yankee, it was completely against the Griersons legacy to marry a northern man having the post Civil War mentality, so Homer would have never been the perfect suitor for Emily. Regardless to say Emily quickly fell in love with Homer and she couldn’t bare the humiliation of Homer leaving her since he was not the marrying type. Within all of the things happening around Emily and all of the mixed internal feelings Emily repressed throughout the years, especially not having many
Historically, reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is considered to be a rare disorder (American Academy of Children and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), 2011). Clinical disorders of attachment did not appear in the DSM until the third edition, published in 1980 (Zeanah et al., 2004). In the fourth edition of the DSM (text revision), reactive attachment disorder was described from two different perspectives: inhibited form and disinhibited form. It was suggested that the different forms of...
William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” displays themes of alienation and isolation. Emily Grierson’s own father is found to be the root of many of her problems. Faulkner writes Emily’s character as one who is isolated from the people of her town. Her isolation from society and alienation from love is what ultimately drives her to madness.
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
By treating her like this, the townspeople allowed her to avoid adult responsibilities such as paying her taxes. They also did not allow her to have a romantic life. They felt that her relationship with Homer was a bad influence to the young teens in the town, so they called in her relatives to either convince Homer to marry Emily or to convince Emily to quit being with Homer. She needed the opportunity to live her life freely as an adult woman.
Emily father was highly favored in the town. Faulkner writes in his Short Story Criticism, “The Griersons have always been “high and mighty,” somehow above “the gross, teeming world….” Emily’s father was well respected and occasionally loaned the town money. That made her a wealthy child and she basically had everything a child wanted. Emily’s father was a very serious man and Emily’s mind was violated by her father’s strict mentality. After Emily’s father being the only man in her life, he dies and she find it hard to let go of him. Because of her father, she possessed a stubborn outlook on life and how thing should be. She practically secluded her self from society for the remainder of her life.
In the short story “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner, Emily, the protagonist, is shown as someone who’s life is falling apart and brought down by society. Emily in this story could be described as a victim to society and her father. Emily Grierson’s confinement, loss of her father and Homer, and constant criticism caused her, her insanity.