‘Til Death Do Us Part: An Analysis of Emily Grierson’s Path to Insanity in A Rose for Emily It is never certain how one grieves the death of someone important in his or her life. Jewish people sit Shiva for a period of seven days to mourn, Iranians organize an additional funeral forty days after the death, and Americans hold a lone service immediately after the death and leave it at that. Many people cling to the memories of their loved ones, while others may physically cling to the loved ones themselves. William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily depicts a character from the Old South who exudes signs of a mental illness while trying to keep alive traditions of her past by attempting to alter her reality. Miss Emily was seen by her townspeople …show more content…
Emily’s struggles due to her father include “personal grief, a restricted social life, socio-economic decline, and romantic misfortune” combined with “a long history of trauma and repression” (Argiro 445). Coming from an aristocratic southern family, Miss Emily was well off money-wise, but extremely oppressed by her father in the aspects of her romantic life and getting to make friends outside her home. Although, Emily’s strange behaviors are noted throughout the short story, they become amplified after the death of her father. She does not grieve right away, which causes the rest of the residents of her town to speculate why. However, after Emily’s breakdown three days later, the narrator recalls the people of the town remember how Emily’s father would scare away any man who would want her (235). Emily’s mental health begins deteriorating at this moment, as her longing for companionship cannot be held in any longer. After her breakdown, Emily secludes herself to her house more than usual and is described to have gained weight and chopped all of her hair off. And still, she becomes hopeful when worker Homer Barron comes to town and shows an interest with
The theme for “A Rose for Emily” has to deal with death, traditions versus change, and it kind is man vs. society. Emily Grierson was considered an e...
Through the use of third person point of view and elaborate, repetitive foreshadowing, William Faulkner describes how numerous elements contributed to Miss Emily's deranged behavior in the short story, 'A Rose for Emily.' Not only does Faulkner imply paternal oppression, but there is also a clear indication of insanity that is an inherent pattern in the Grierson family. The shocking conclusion of 'A Rose for Emily' could be the result of a number of circumstances, but is most likely due to the years of isolation and the overbearing upbringing Emily experienced with her father.
“At first reading, the gothic horror of the tale will likely rule out a heart-lifting experience” (Stranburg). Emily suffers with a mental illness disease throughout the story as she is one of the last members of her family that is still living. When she was a child her father wouldn’t allow her to have social contact. When her father dies he leaves her the house but no money and it sends her into a depressed downward spiral and she refuses to accept his death for three days. "She met the ladies at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them her father was not dead. She told them that for three days" (Faulkner 3). Emily’s response shows the readers how much she has convinced herself that he’s not dead and how bad mental illness can really be. The neighbors do not see anything wrong with her at this point, they just believe she taking the loss of her father hard. Soon she meets Homer who is in town working on a construction project. Shortly sometime after Emily falls for him and they began dating. Homer decided to leave and then comes back and that is the last time he is seen in the story. Emily is so sick and twisted she is willing to kill the people that she loves most, because the fear of being alone is so haunting to her. After she kills Homer the neighbors start to wonder about the stench coming from her house and start to get
The stories “A Rose for Emily” by Faulkner, and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Gilman both touch on the topic of insanity. In both stories, the insanity is caused by an obsession over a certain thing, or person. This suggests to the reader that fixating on a certain thing in life, even if it seems good at the time, often ends up being detrimental to our health.
When her father passed away, it was a devastating loss for Miss Emily. The lines from the story 'She told them her father was not dead. She did that for three days,' (Charter 171) conveys the message that she tried to hold on to him, even after his death. Even though, this was a sad moment for Emily, but she was liberated from the control of her father. Instead of going on with her life, her life halted after death of her father. Miss Emily found love in a guy named Homer Barron, who came as a contractor for paving the sidewalks in town. Miss Emily was seen in buggy on Sunday afternoons with Homer Barron. The whole town thought they would get married. One could know this by the sentences in the story ?She will marry him,? ?She will persuade him yet,? (Charter 173).
William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily is a dreary short story told of a traditional woman surrounded by death living in an ever-changing town. Emily’s funeral is the opening paragraph in A Rose for Emily to help introduce the background of the town’s perception of the curiosity known as Emily. Faulkner introduces Emily by stating “She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.” (323) The sorrow of the main character in A Rose for Emily is illustrated by the reaffirmation of death throughout the story and how it seems to follow her in life by her resistance to change.
William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily tells a story of a young woman who is violated by her father’s strict mentality. After being the only man in her life Emily’s father dies and she finds it hard to let go. Like her father Emily possesses a stubborn outlook towards life, and she refused to change. While having this attitude about life Emily practically secluded herself from society for the remainder of her life. She was alone for the very first time and her reaction to this situation was solitude.
William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a short story told from the point of view of an unnamed narrator and opens with the death of Miss Emily Grierson, an elderly woman that the reader quickly learns that the town views more as a character than an actual human being. Through flashbacks, the mysterious and haunting tale of Emily is revealed. As a child, Emily was the member of an aristocratic family, but has now long been living in relative poverty in the former grand home of her family after her father left her with no money. The product of the Civil War South, Emily never moved past the social customs of her youth, and refused to live according to modern standards. This becomes evident when she accepts the mayor’s hidden charity under the guise of her never owing taxes due to a lie that her father had loaned the town money and this was how the town would re...
A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner is a short story with third party narration, centered on the main character, Emily Grierson. She is suppressed by her father, life expectations and community interest in her life. The reader gets a sense that Emily cracks under all the pressure and they soon realize after her death, when she is in her seventies, that she did in fact have a mental disorder.
With every turn of the page, the dark and twisted storyline of “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner leaves the reader in a stronger state of shock and inevitably speechless. Faulkner cleverly uses symbols, characters, and theme to illustrate the inner thoughts of Emily Grierson and the community’s ongoing struggle between tradition and modernism. .
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...
Miss Emily’s isolation is able to benefit her as well. She has the entire town believing she is a frail and weak woman, but she is very strong indeed. Everyone is convinced that she could not even hurt a fly, but instead she is capable a horrible crime, murder. Miss Emily’s actions range from eccentric to absurd. After the death of her father, and the estrangement from the Yankee, Homer Barron, she becomes reclusive and introverted. The reader can find that Miss Emily did what was necessary to keep her secret from the town. “Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years” (247).
In "A Rose for Emily," William Faulkner's use of setting and characterization foreshadows and builds up to the climax of the story. His use of metaphors prepares the reader for the bittersweet ending. A theme of respectability and the loss of, is threaded throughout the story. Appropriately, the story begins with death, flashes back to the past and hints towards the demise of a woman and the traditions of the past she personifies. Faulkner has carefully crafted a multi-layered masterpiece, and he uses setting, characterization, and theme to move it along.
At the beginning of the story when her father died, it was mentioned that “[Emily] told [the ladies in town] that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body” (626). Faulkner reveals Emily’s dependency on her father through the death of her father. As shown in this part of the story, Emily was very attached to her father and was not able to accept that fact that he was no longer around. She couldn’t let go of the only man that loved her and had been with her for all those years. While this may seem like a normal reaction for any person who has ever lost a loved one, Faulkner emphasizes Emily’s dependence and attachment even further through Homer Barron. After her father’s death, Emily met a man name Homer, whom she fell in love with. While Homer showed interest in Emily at the beginning he became uninterested later on. “Homer himself had remarked—he liked men” (627) which had caused Emily to become devastated and desperate. In order to keep Homer by her side, Emily decided to poison Homer and keep him in a bedroom in her home. It was clear that she was overly attached to Homer and was not able to lose another man that she
Some changes in life are inevitable such as the aging process and death. Any day can be one’s last day walking or breathing, and for some the object of letting go of someone held for so long is tragic. It may even seem like the deceased person is still alive and everything is operating as normal or that it was all a big dream. In William Faulkner’s, “A Rose For Emily” the idea of Emily Grierson letting go of the only man she’s ever loved and cherished, in her father, leaves her torn apart. Looking to fill the fresh wound inside her heart, Emily sought desperate measures to ensure that the next man she loved would never leave her.