William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily

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In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” Miss Emily Grierson becomes a lost young woman after the death of her father, the only love she has ever known. She does not know any other type of love other than her father’s, or how to express her love to others. During her older years, Emily meets Homer Barron and never wants to let him go. The night before their wedding, Emily finds out that Homer wants to leave her in order to pursue alternate avenues of love. After learning that he is gay and wants to leave, Emily decides to murder him. Faulkner makes it clear that Miss Emily has lost her sense of love, and her conscience when she kills Homer Barron to keep him forever.
During her early life, Miss Emily lives with her father, and he turns away every suitor that was not fit for his daughter. Due to his actions, Emily does not learn how to love another person and never quite figures it out. Hindered by her father’s over protectiveness, Emily does not know how to cope with the emotional hurdles that she approaches, later in life.
After losing her father, Emily is not able to deal with the pain of losing him. This pain is the foremost explanation of her inevitable alienation, because “She is afraid to confront reality (“Alienation”par.1).” Shut away in her home Emily’s future of marriage and children have dwindled into waste “Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized (Faulkner par.27).” Like many people, Emily’s emotional capacity stems from the relationships with her parent. Since her father locks her, up and shuts her off from the rest of the world. She never acquires the potential to grow emotionally further and experience what love can be. Emily endures many trials of her immature emotions, and fails because of her e...

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...Emily the character she is. The townspeople drive her further into madness when they isolate her further than what she has already done herself. Emily is a person who craves love hangs onto the past, and never wants anything to change. Her emotional tear, lack of human contact, and crime drive her to become completely isolated until she dies of a natural death.

Works Cited

"Alienation and Isolation in William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"" StudyMode.com. 03 2002. 2002. 03 2002.
Binder, Aubrey. "Uncovering The Past: The Role Of Dust Imagery In A ROSE FOR EMILY." Explicator 70.1 (2012): 5-7. Literary Reference Center. Web. 25 Mar. 2014
Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.”
"William Faulkner- Biography." William Faulkner. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
"William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily – Setting Analysis." Online Essays com. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.

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