If Superman were humanized, he would lose all his immortal traits and become an earthly citizen with only human-like characteristics to depend on. In A Rose For Emily, William Faulkner uses this same word to express the major changes that the protagonist of his story, Emily, goes through after her tragic incident. With his choice of word, Faulkner makes a single transition in the story express how Emily deals with her father's death, becomes pitied by the townspeople, and handles the remainder of her own life. At first glance, the word humanize does not seem like the perfect word to use when expressing the changes Emily experiences during her grievance period. Emily does not admit to the harsh realty for three days and shows no emotion when questioned about the topic; two seemingly inhumane actions. However, these are very acceptable reactions considering all the young men her father had driven out of her life. Emily realized without her father, she had nobody left to depend on. Furthermore, this shows that she does possess dependent emotions, a very humane trait that she does not show very often. With her father's death and the humanization process commencing, Emily is also being pitied by the townspeople; something that they could not bring themselves to do before. Up until her father's death, some of the townspeople viewed Emily as an, "obligation" rather than a fellow neighbor. Others viewed her as a very powerful woman who lived in a big house and had her father running her life. Emily never had to pay taxes, which made the townspeople see her as an inhumane person. The people of the town felt like they could never truly pity her because it is impossible to show compassion to an artificial individual. With her father dy... ... middle of paper ... ...her ongoing life. With her father out of her life, she realizes that she needs him more than she thought, and is forced to become more independent. With this independence, the townspeople open up to Emily because they value her character for her willingness to grow as an individual. They are on the same level with her and now can pity Emily instead of envy her. Although there are no evident signs of improvement, Emily realized that she needs love and affection to survive. These are emotions that all humans need in order to stay sane and emotionally stable. Choosing a word to express such a major transition in one's life can be extremely difficult, but Faulkner depicts his character's emotions brilliantly using the word humanize. Humanize has a wide variety of meaning in the context of the story; a great deal more than what meets the eye in the standard definition.
In “a romance to kill” the author explains that they believe that the townspeople did not like how Emily was acting when she was with Homer. The townspeople felt that she was just messing around driving around with him out town. The story also shows that the town wanted them to get married but did not like the way they acted. I feel that because Emily grew up in this town and she was high class, people would watch out for her. The town seems to start feeling like they need to just do something to help her along. Emily needed to find love and happiness and start acting like a “lady” in this town. I feel that the townspeople are being frustrated with Emily at this point and need to see her move on but they also seem to gossip about her so often that it seems that they do not like
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.
Just as in “Barn Burning,” Emily’s father figure had antagonistic traits to him. Though he did love her and was not as short-tempered as Abner, he still could be picked as an antagonist for this story. Emily’s father plays a key role for Emily’s loner tendencies. Growing up, her father kept Emily isolated from much of society and never accepted any guy she brought home. Another antagonist that could be found in the story is Emily herself. Throughout the story, Emily is viewed as the protagonist and attracts a feeling of sympathy from the reader. Faulkner stated, “At last they could pity Miss Emily,” (pg. 80) when talking about the death of her father. As Emily goes through her trials in life she does indeed receive sympathy. However, Emily’s actions throughout the story and especially towards the end can be viewed as self-hindering. Emily locking herself up and never leaving her isolated state to make a positive change in her life, makes me lose sympathy for her. The view of being the protagonist changes once Emily purchases the arsenic at the drug store. Emily then uses the drug to kill her former lover, Homer Baron. Instead of being the poor lady with the sad upbringing of a strict father, Emily becomes a cold-blooded murderer by the end of the story. However, Emily is more of a product of her
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.
Miss Emily’s father restricts the people she is allowed to interact with to the point that she has no social life. So after her father dies, Emily has been isolated so much that she does not know anyone and has no idea how to socialize, and just as Miss Emily is isolated from the townspeople, they feel isolated from her. She becomes not as someone to become close to , but as a person of high society . They view her as "a tradition, a duty, and care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town" (Rose ). Normally, everyday townspeople do not socialize with upper-class citizens, so the people of Jefferson feels like it would be a wrong to converse with Miss Emily. Also, the townsfolk put Emily Grierson on a pedestal of some sort which further sets her apart from the rest of the town. Jefferson looks and treats Emily as a “monument” of the town (Rose ). She is not perceived as a real,
Initially, Emily was taught by her father to stay home and was not taught self-esteem, self-confidence, self-worth, or self-dependence by her father. Emily was restricted from courting by her father; her father would claim that none of the young men she was interested in were good enough for her or the family (Faulkner 77). Emily's father made her dependent on him by not allowing her to be confident in herself and "thwarting her woman's life" (Faulkner 79). For example, there is a picture in the minds of the townspeople that Emily is in the background, and her father is in the foreground holding a whip (Faulkner 77). This gives an image of her overly dominant father demanding and threatening her to stay behind. As you can see, Emily was taught to remain isolated.
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.
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.
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...
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.
Emily’s isolation is evident because after the men that cared about her deserted her, either by death or simply leaving her, she hid from society and didn’t allow anyone to get close to her. Miss Emily is afraid to confront reality. She seems to live in a sort of fantasy world where death has no meaning. Emily refuses to accept or recognize the death of her father, and the fact that the world around her is changing.
Due to depression, Emily did not leave her house a lot because she did not want to be around anyone. After she poisoned and killed her husband she is seen for the “last time.” The author describes Emily as, “she has grown fat and her hair was turning gray. During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-grey” (Faulkner 4). She was beginning to not care about what anyone thinks about her anymore. The only person that she needed to impress is now dead, so she has no reason to care.
In “A Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner, Emily Geierson is a woman that faces many difficulties throughout her lifetime. Emily Geierson was once a cheerful and bright lady who turned mysterious and dark through a serious of tragic events. The lost of the two men, whom she loved, left Emily devastated and in denial. Faulkner used these difficulties to define Emily’s fascinating character that is revealed throughout the short story. William Faulkner uses characterization in “A Rose for Emily”, to illustrate Miss Emily as a stubborn, overly attached, and introverted woman.
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.
Faulkner introduces Emily as a dynamic and lively character, and the reader begins to wonder why she is so bounded to the past. After her father’s death, the townspeople begin to "feel really sorry for her" and realize, "the house was all that was left to her" (Faulkner 1105). In a peculiar way it makes the townspeople somewhat happy to know that her life is more secluded than it was before, and that she would be able to "become more humanized" (Faulkner 1105). She was unable to be truly humanized when her father was alive because he controlled her every move, and he was able to do so by ensuring her life was completely sheltered. For example, he made sure she did not find a lover during his lifetime, or someone who would ultimately take Emily away from him. Even after her father 's death he still controlled her thoughts and emotions, in which she was unable to truly escape until her own death. This power control over death proves "A Rose for Emily" is more of an unrequited love story trapped within a gothic tale. She does not return the same feeling of love to her father, and yet becomes more secluded from the town. The only way she is able to truly control her own life is by hiding from the outside world, and denying the fact of death