Emily Grierson Disorder

When someone you truly love dies, it can cause one’s self to become mentally unstable. In William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily,” the narrator tells us the story from his/her own perspective, which is somewhat limited. The main character, Mrs. Emily Grierson, is thought of as a mysterious, possibly even crazy woman in the town of Jefferson.
Emily Grierson’s father was someone who appears to be a hero in the town where she lives. He must have had a big role in maintaining or running the town which caused him to be a wealthy man. One would think that the story would be about a young girl and her loving and wealthy father,when in fact, this story is more of a tale about a dysfunctional father-daughter relationship and the strangeness

As humans, we long to have people by our side because we do not like the feeling of being alone. From a reader’s view, we do not actually know what Emily is thinking or feeling. We only know the information that our narrator is giving. Even so, the narrator is unreliable because everything that he/she is telling us is gossip that is heard from other people in the town. From what we read and learn throughout the text, Emily is trying hard to hide her craziness. The narrator writes that she was sick for a long time. “When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl…” (5). Our narrator, along with the townspeople, begin to notice not only a mental change, but a physical change in Emily Grierson’s appearance. In the beginning of the story “A Rose for Emily”, Emily is described as a “small fat woman” (2). Now she looks like she has lost weight, with a “vague” figure (5) and with her hair growing “grayer and grayer” (7). The death of her father and losing the authority that he had over her seems to make Emily go crazy and become ill. From the reader’s perspective, she is lost and in need of a man to hold, protect, and govern

They begin to date and see each other regularly. The narrator reveals that “when she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, [the people of Jefferson] said, “she will marry him” (6). The emptiness that she felt from her father’s death would soon go away because Homer was filling in the empty hole where her father was. The story goes on to read that Homer left town for some time, leaving Emily behind with nobody by her side. “After her father’s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all” (3). The narrator insinuates that Emily becomes a recluse. When Homer finally returns, the narrator’s account of the townspeople’s gossip causes readers to become more suspicious of Emily’s unusual