Theme Of Revenge In A Rose For Emily And Killings

People are taught that murder is a sin. People are also taught not to seek revenge, but to pray for the person(s) that revenge is wanted on. Is that easier said than done? Absolutely. A definition of revenge is “An opportunity to retaliate or gain satisfaction” (Dictionary.com). Satisfaction is not always guaranteed. In “A Rose For Emily” and “Killings” the motivation for murder is seen in Emily and Matt’s lives through their backgrounds, the relationships between them and their victims, as well as the emotional triggers that are revealed to the reader to make the stories add up to Emily and Matt’s final decisions to murder. Emily had a close relationship to her father, and although the cause of his passing is left unsaid, it is made clear

The readers understand that when he was alive that he ran away all of the young men that she was interested in, so of course when he died she had no other love to lean on. Emily was so attached to her father that after he died she refused to allow his body to be taken away for three days. This is how the readers are introduced to Homer Barron. It is learned that he was part of the lower class, but Emily loved him even though she was taught that she was above others. Or did she only love the way he filled that void for her that her father left? Homer left when some of Emily’s family from Alabama came to stay with her after the town’s minister’s wife wrote to them; and when they left, back came Homer a few days later. When he returns, that is when Emily decided she was going to make sure that he did not leave her again. “I want arsenic” (102). Foreshadowing us to what was to come between the relationship of Emily Grierson and Homer Barron. She feared going through another loss of a man she loved and there was only one was to guarantee he would not be taken away. However, Matt’s relationship with Richard was based solely on the fact that his son, Frank, dated Richard’s wife while they were split up. Mary Ann had a way about her that drew not only Frank and Richard towards her, but Matt as well. “[A]nd the long brown legs he loved to look at” (115). Words spoken from Matt’s point of view, which gives us a clue to just how much power, this young girl who had been through so much made the men feel like they had just by being around her. Although Matt had a relationship with the girl who was the root of his son’s murder, he had no prior contact to Richard before his decision to seek revenge on him. Frank was the only true link between the two of them and when the link was taken out then one of the other’s had to go