“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his [her] point of view … until you climb into his [her] skin and walk around in it” (Harper Lee). Simply stated the townspeople of Jefferson view Miss Emily as an outsider, but can’t truly relate to her unless they have experienced similar situations. A rose for Emily”, the protagonist Emily Grierson, who lives in the south undergoes various obstacles due to her relationships with men, the ridicule she faces as a woman of high status, and isolation from society. One reason Emily has difficulties in life is because she withdraws herself from participating in society. The root of Miss Emily’s solitude began back when her father was alive. Emily, who for the majority of her …show more content…
Furthermore, this shows that her father secluded her from every opportunity of being in a relationship. Feeling pathetic, the townspeople had compassion for Miss Emily. Her father dictated her every move for all her life up until his death. The disturbance place on Emily by her father by sheltering her from society. The townspeople depict her father as "a straddled silhouette in the foreground, with his back to her and clutching a horsewhip” (Faulkner). The horsewhip symbolizes the power her father has over Emily. Emily being described as in the foreground further illustrates the submission to her father. Homer Barron, was the only man she felt affection for, and had the intentions of marrying him. As the story progresses Miss Emily made a purchase at a jeweler’s. She ordered a man's toilet set in silver, with the letters H. B. on each piece. Emily also had bought a complete outfit of men's clothing, including a nightshirt, and After Emily’s father had passed away she had went about her life in the same arrangement that always had been, under the counsel of male jurisdiction. “On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss
Life is sad and tragic; some of which is made for us and some of which we make ourselves. Emily had a hard life. Everything that she loved left her. Her father probably impressed upon her that every man she met was no good for her. The townspeople even state “when her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad…being left alone…She had become humanized” (219). This sounds as if her father’s death was sort of liberation for Emily. In a way it was, she could begin to date and court men of her choice and liking. Her father couldn’t chase them off any more. But then again, did she have the know-how to do this, after all those years of her father’s past actions? It also sounds as if the townspeople thought Emily was above the law because of her high-class stature. Now since the passing of her father she may be like them, a middle class working person. Unfortunately, for Emily she became home bound.
In, 'A Rose for Emily', Emily is being kept and locked away from the world. Her father keeps her isolated with only the company of their servant. The people of the town “remembered all the young men her father had driven away” (Faulkner 219). Because of this, Emily grew well past the age of being courted and finding a husband. After he died, she was left even more alone than before. Her family was not really present in her life ever since they and her father had an argument and did not keep in touch. The people of the town also helped with the isolation of Emily. The people have always regarded the family as strange and mysterious keeping their distance. Emily had “a vague resemblance to those angels in the colored church windows- sort of tragic and serene” (Faulkner 220). She did not leave the house often and when she did, ...
We had long thought of them as a tableau, 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, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn 't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized.’ (25) This complete sheltering leaves Emily to play into with in her own deprived reality within her own mind, creating a skewed perception of reality and relationships”(A Plastic Rose,
For years Miss Emily was rarely seen out of her house. She did not linger around town or participate in any communal activities. She was the definition of a home-body. Her father was a huge part of her life. She had never...
Having been the only daughter of a noble family, Emily was overprotected by her father who had driven away all the young men wanting to be close to her. As a result of that, when she got to be thirty, she was still alone. It was Mr. Grierson who alienated his daughter from the normal life of a young woman. If she weren?t born in the Grierson, if she didn?t have an upper-class father, she could have many relationships with many young men in order to find herself an ideal lover. Then she might have a happy marriage life with a nice husband and children.
life and looked for a way to gain her freedom. Emily must endure her fathers
Having to send Emily in her early days to live with her father was a burdensome nuisance. All of Emily's father's attributes were rubbing off on her, "all of the baby loveliness gone," (p.
Those last two phrases refers that Miss Emily demanded respect, and to be treated always like a lady. She had fallen in love with Homer, she thought he was the man who figured she was missing. When he confessed his secret to her, she felt foolish, humiliated; because she had plans for both, because she risked her last name for laborer. Homer then paid the consequences. Emily’s father raised her with lots of authority, he might have ruined her life by not giving her the opportunity to live a normal lady/woman life; but he built a personality, character and a psycho woman.
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 went on pieces from Emily started to drift away and also the home that she confined herself to. The town grew a great deal of sympathy towards Emily, although she never hears it. She was slightly aware of the faint whispers that began when her presence was near. Gossip and whispers may have been the cause of her hideous behavior. The town couldn’t wait to pity Ms. Emily because of the way she looked down on people because she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and she never thought she would be alone the way her father left her.
Miss Emily’s isolation is able to benefit her as well. She has the entire town believing she is a frail and weak woman, but she is very strong indeed. Everyone is convinced that she could not even hurt a fly, but instead she is capable a horrible crime, murder. Miss Emily’s actions range from eccentric to absurd. After the death of her father, and the estrangement from the Yankee, Homer Barron, she becomes reclusive and introverted. The reader can find that Miss Emily did what was necessary to keep her secret from the town. “Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years” (247).
Emily shows very anti-social tendencies and is said to have become more of a recluse in society as time passed. Eventually, after her father’s passing, she completely shuts herself off from the rest of the world, and the narrator states that “the front door closed upon the last one and remained closed for good,” (7). Emily is also very stubborn and refuses to do things like pay taxes and allow the community to put her up a mailbox, which in turn leaves her with very few relationships with the people around her and causes them to look at her negatively. Because of this lack of relationships, another personality trait for Miss Emily is loneliness. This loneliness is especially portrayed when the townspeople knock down the door and find the rotted corpse in the bed.
After all the tragic events in her life, Emily became extremely introverted. After killing Homer, Emily locked herself in and blocked everyone else out. It was mentioned, “…that was the last time we saw of Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time” (628). In fact, no one in town really got to know Miss Emily personally as she always kept her doors closed, which reflects on how she kept herself closed for all those years. Many of the town’s women came to her funeral with curiosity about how she lived, as no one had ever known her well enough to know. This was revealed at the beginning of the story when the narrator mentioned, “the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant… had seen in the last ten years”(623). Everyone in town knew of her but did not know her because she kept to herself for all those years.
Miss Emily does not go out for some time after her father’s death until she meets
Emily was kept confined from all that surrounded her. Her father had given the town folks a large amount of money which caused Emily and her father to feel superior to others. “Grierson’s held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner). Emily’s attitude had developed as a stuck-up and stubborn girl and her father was to blame for this attitude. Emily was a normal girl with aspirations of growing up and finding a mate that she could soon marry and start a family, but this was all impossible because of her father. The father believed that, “none of the younger man were quite good enough for Miss Emily,” because of this Miss Emily was alone. Emily was in her father’s shadow for a very long time. She lived her li...