A Rose For Emily Character Analysis Essay

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Emily Grierson is the main character in William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily”. Over the course of the short story, Miss Emily has unpredictable and odd behaviors, making her the talk of the town. She is considered a round, static, and indirect character. Miss Emily is a round character, being that she is thoroughly explained throughout the short story and there are many details about her character. Grierson effectively makes Emily seem like the odd one out in the town through many of her actions. The townspeople cannot explain how Miss Emily is able to sleep next to the corpse of Homer Barron for so many years and be so okay with it. Although one could easily tell she is not right in the head, the townspeople “did not say she was …show more content…

She and her family, the Griersons, "held themselves a little too high for what they really were." (Meyer 84) She seems to have a stubborn and stuck up attitude all throughout the short story. The reason for that attitude is her father, who had given a good amount of money to the town and the compensation is that Miss Emily lives tax-free, which the townspeople are not very fond of. Throughout the story she is continually felt sorry for by the townspeople, despite her odd behaviors. Despite of the opinions of the townspeople, Miss Emily maintains her head held high. As Faulkner states, "She carried her head high enough even when we believed that she was fallen" (Meyer 86). The relationship she had with her boyfriend was never clear amongst the town rumors. In the end, one finds the treatment from her father while she was growing up has molded her into the person the town believes her to be. She actually is a woman with a deep heart who does not want the love of her life to disappear just like everything else in her life had done so in the past. Faulkner correctly and thoroughly characterizes the main character in “A Rose for Emily”. Miss Emily, being a round, indirect, and static character, is truly exposed in this writing and one is able to see all details of her being from her father’s upbringing up until her homicidal

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