No one leaves Miss Emily. Miss Emily feared those she loved of leaving her. As she clung to the past, even one in which she created in her own mind, she morphed her own denial into a life for herself. She refused death in any form. Her mind tried to survive a state of mind in which abandonment was lethal. As her internal psychosis set in, she robbed herself of a life while trying to erase the thought of her loved ones’ deaths. Emily Grierson came from the most prominent family of her town. Although she rarely left the house or socialized with the townspeople, they were fascinated by her seemingly quiet life. She was a peculiar woman, never married and never looking. The Griersons held themselves very high in their community and thought of themselves as better than others. It is through this conditioning that Emily first begins to train her mind to abolish separation. She believed that if her family was her only suitable associates, she best not let them leave her sight. Emily rarely left the house and did not socialize with the ladies or men of her town. It is when she purposefully segregates herself that she starts her eventual spiraling psychosis. As years went on Emily’s mental state deteriorated slowly. When Emily’s father died the town knew, but Miss Emily knew no such thing. Although the physical realization was obvious, the woman sat with her deceased father in the parlor for nearly three days. When the town was finally allowed inside the house, she showed “no trace of grief on her face” and “told them her father was not dead.” Emily was resorting to a mental self-medication, a psychosis in which to treat her pain. By denying what might be devastating, she lived in a “distorted or non-existent sense of objective reality... ... middle of paper ... ...cally, in hopes to keep her loved ones from leaving, and in hopes to erase death’s wicked embrace, she stole her own life from herself. By ignoring reality, she lived no such life but a fantasy created by a vicious psychosis. No one leaves Miss Emily. In the end all that was loved was dead, and one whom had loved was too gone. Perhaps the woman’s theory was not so absurd. Abandonment is lethal. The abandoners and abandonee, each dead. Each robbed of the life that could have been. Works Cited Donna Olendorf, Christine Jeryan, Karen Boyden. The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine Volume Four. Farmington Hills: Gale, 1999. Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." In An Introduction to Literature, by William Burto, William E. Cain Sylvan Barnet, 449-459. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006. Richard R. Bootzin, Joan Ross Acocella. Abnormal Psychology. New York: Random House, 1984.
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Literature and Its Writers. 6th ed. Boston, New York:
Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 12th ed. New York: Pearson, 2013. 549-51. Print.
We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn 't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized.’ (25) This complete sheltering leaves Emily to play into with in her own deprived reality within her own mind, creating a skewed perception of reality and relationships”(A Plastic Rose,
For years Miss Emily was rarely seen out of her house. She did not linger around town or participate in any communal activities. She was the definition of a home-body. Her father was a huge part of her life. She had never...
For that reason, it is easy for readers to assume that Emily has separation anxiety. In this story by William Faulkner, she takes what modern day society would consider drastic measures to make sure the two never leave her. An example of this is offered when Emily Grierson’s father passes away due to old age. Emily is so attached to her father that she keeps his body in the house for several days after his death, pretending, most likely for her own sake, that he is still alive. In fact, the townspeople proclaim, “The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom, Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face.
As can be seen Emily had a hard life. Everything that she loved left her. After her fathers death she
...suaded to send Emily away to live in a convalescent home so that she could get better, and it would free Emily’s mom to care for the new baby. When Emily was released from the convalescent home eight months later, the narrator desired a connection with Emily, “I used to try to hold and love her after she came back, but her body would stay stiff, and after a while she’d push away” (Olsen, 1953-54, p. 817).
“After her father’s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all” (364). When her father left her, she was a lonely woman. Mr. Grierson secluded her from people for years and once he was gone, she had nothing. She had a hard time letting go because he was all she had. Emily’s father was always the one person she counted on, looked up to, loved and adored since she had no one else.
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’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.
His controlling manner, later learned by her, lead to her obsession with control over other’s will. Showing signs of developing necrophilia and schizophrenia (derived from her symptoms and the family history with her aunt), it is further proof of the instability of her mental state. As Emily makes her descent into that darkness, it is shown how she secludes herself in her house and continues that journey away from the prying eyes of the town’s people.
Meanwhile, the protagonist in ‘A Rose for Emily” is isolated because she is incapable of accepting facts and to live independently. “The day after [her father] death, Miss Emily met [the ladies] at the door, dresses as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead” (101).
At the end of this short story, Miss Emily has passed away, and her house is finally being searched through. Only to the relatives dismay, they find the dusty and decaying body of some poor bloke in a bed in the topmost room. Right away, the second a dead body is mentioned, the mind just recoils. Faulkner did a great job of really building that climax and keeping the reader on the edge. He discusses the duty of a writer and how they can 't forget the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself. Miss Emily just as a single character represents this idea with her odd habits, troubled heart, and distant mind. She was literally a human heart in conflict with itself. Jian-hui discusses, “A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner presents us a heroine who drifts apart from the world and others. Besides, she indulges in her world, confronting conflicts. She is a victim of society and tradition. Tortured by two definitions by men, she goes through obedience, betrayal, and loss of herself, alienated from an original"angel"to a"monster".” Everything she did was almost odd, and sort of creepy. Faulkner again captivated his audience with the horror of Miss Emily, fulfilling the writer’s
...she believed might be the only way to keep the man she loved from leaving her. Out of desperation for human love, when she realized Homer would leave her she murdered him so she could at least cling to his body. In his death, Emily finally found eternal love that no one could every take from 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...