Internal Controls In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

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“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner portrays a young female adult, Emily, who has gone through a life in which she has unfortunately become mentally unstable. When her father had died, she had refused the townspeople to take his body away from her claiming that he was not dead. Eventually, she allowed them to bury the body. Following her father’s death, Colonel Sartoris remitted Emily’s taxes stating that her father had loaned a lot of money to the town and to pay it back, the town remitted her taxes. Over the course of Emily’s life, she was in the spotlight of the townspeople’s’ attention because of how peculiar she went about her life. She would not allow for a mailbox or numbers to be put on her house, dated Homer Barron, purchased arsenic, …show more content…

Through this quote, it is observed that the psychodynamic perspective believes that a lack of controls being in place and weak internal controls can contribute to criminal activity. Emily comes from a wealthy upbringing, but the story describes her father as being a man who would chase away any other men who were interested in Emily. He seemed to be the only man who was allowed in her life. Being that he was the only man in her life, it only makes sense that after his death she would deny that he was dead and hold onto the body; she had no other men to hold onto. In the short story, it mentioned, “we remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will” (Faulkner, 2). This was the sad truth and everyone in the town knew it too. It can be inferred that she had some aggressive energy towards the townspeople when they wanted to bury the body and that this could be partially blamed on her father’s parenting. Once her father was dead and buried, she became involved with Homer Barron. Due to the way her …show more content…

Maslow believed that people have a wide variety of needs that make up a hierarchy of needs. Each of these needs is different in how soon the individual has to feel it and different needs are shown to satisfy different people at different times. This hierarchy of needs is made up of physiological needs, safety needs, belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization. Throughout this hierarchy, Maslow shows the needs and states that if any of the needs were not satisfied for a prolonged period of time, a fixation on that need could occur (Sammons, 1). There is no question as to whether or not Emily had her physiological needs fulfilled. Her safety needs were also fulfilled. The last three levels of the hierarchy of needs that was created by Maslow were definitely not reached. When considering her belonging needs, Emily is definitely seen as an outcast by the townspeople. She was left alone and cast to the side. She might have put herself there, but the truth is that she might have put herself there because of the fact that she knew everyone in the town was talking about her as an outcast. Her esteem needs were never fulfilled because she was not put in touch with anyone. She never belonged because she was wealthier and was raised to hold her head up higher than

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