In “A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner tells a story about a young women who is overwhelmingly influenced by her father. Her father controls her live and makes all of her decisions for her. Without him she could not do anything except stay at home. When her father dies, Emily has to confront a new life without her sponsor. Since she is not able to function without the presence of her father, it is hard for her to adapt and accept the truth. When Emily’s father dies, women of the town call on her to offer their help, which is their custom when someone suffers a tragic loss. Emily denies that as she meets them in front of her house with no emotion in her face. She sends them away as she considers her father still alive instead of being death. Her father controls all over her life; therefore, she couldn’t accept the death of her father. In her thought, her father still exists in her house and he is the only one source that she can support to.
It’s time for her to make her decision herself. She spends majority of her time in the house where she feels comfortable and where her father still exists and protects her. She decides to live herself in the house regardless of changes outside in the world. She could not escape from her father’ ghost shadow. Everything changes; nevertheless, she still lives with the past. For example, when a new age of city authorities in town visit her house in order to collect taxes they feel she own; she explains that: “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me.” Yes, it is true; however, colonel Sartoris has been dead almost for ten years.
There are two characters in this story described opposite to each other. They are Miss Emily and Mr. Homer. Miss Emily is described as a short, fat, aged and mysterious woman. She is very stubborn lady and very hard to change; Miss Emily refuses modern change into her desolate life; for example, she refuses to allow attaching numbers on her door and a mailbox for free mail service. All her attitude is a result of her father’s over-control her when she was very young. On the other hand, Homer is “ a Yankee- a big dark, ready man, with big voice and eyes lighter the his face.
A Rose for Emily Life is fickle and most people will be a victim of circumstance and the times. Some people choose not to let circumstance rule them and, as they say, “time waits for no man”. Faulkner’s Emily did not have the individual confidence, or maybe self-esteem and self-worth, to believe that she could stand alone and succeed at life especially in the face of changing times. She had always been ruled by, and depended on, men to protect, defend and act for her. From her Father, through the manservant Tobe, to Homer Barron, all her life was dependent on men.
Emily’s father rose her with lots of authority, he might had ruined her life by not giving her the opportunity to live a normal lady/woman life; but he build a personality, character and a psycho woman. Mister Grierson was the responsible for Emily’s behavior, he thought her to always make others respect her. Homer’s actions of using her as a cover to his sexuality was not respectful at all, Emily did not know any better and poison him to death.
Homer was the main representative of Yankee views towards the Griersons and the entire South, a situation of the present. Emily held the view of the past as if it were a rose-tinted place where nothing would ever die. Her world was already the past. Whenever the modern times were about to take hold of her, she retreated to that world of the past, and took Homer with her. Her room upstairs was that place, a place where Emily could stay with dead Homer forever as though no death nor disease could separate them.
William Faulker’s "A Rose for Emily", is a story told from the viewpoint of a
In “A Rose for Emily” Miss Emily Grierson faces the struggle of living a life in the shadow of her father. The earliest is instance is alluded on page 120, where she is a figure in the background with father “in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip.” While this story is set in the time of horse and buggy, his domineering image and the whip bring to mind a girl who was under constant threat of a beating. Her father also isolated her by chasing off any suitors as not being good enough for her (Faulkner, 123). Her father had a fallout with family over her great aunt’s estate so she is left her isolated from her any of her kin (Faulkner, 125). When her father dies it is his death seems to be the stress that pushes her over the edge. For three days she denied to those that came to offer their condolences that he was dead before she finally broke down (Faulkner, 124). For whatever the reason she falls in love for a foreman named Homer Barron who comes to town to pave the sidewalks. They are seen together and she buys him ...
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.
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...
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.
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”, by William Faulkner, plot plays an important role in how
William Faulkner used indirect characterization to portray Miss Emily as a stubborn, overly attached, and introverted women through the serious of events that happened throughout her lifetime. The author cleverly achieves this by mentioning her father’s death, Homer’s disappearance, the town’s taxes, and Emily’s reactions to all of these events. Emily’s reactions are what allowed the readers to portray her characteristics, as Faulkner would want her to be
In William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily,” the character of Miss Emily quickly catches the attention of the reader. The audience slowly obtains a grasp as to whom Emily is throughout the story, eventually letting them know that Emily is a murderer, who is still mourning the loss of her father. After losing the only person that she has left, Emily’s character experiences a drastic shift in development, leading to events that suggest a change in the character on a deeper, psychological level. However, the question is raised as to whether she was simply shaken into an unstable state due to her father’s death, or if Emily had possibly been suffering from a mental illness all along. It becomes obvious to the reader that Emily’s father
The narrator is vague about the intricate details of her life, perhaps because he presents her story as a member of the town, which means he is only able to narrate it from an observational point of view as opposed to an interactive point of view. “‘A Rose for Emily’ is told from a community point of view, so that the narrative voice in the story is the voice of “our town” and “we,” a group .” (Skei, 150). Certain representations of social expectations can be gleaned from parts of the text. This is especially the case when it comes to gender relations and family. William Faulkner’s short story shows how the nineteenth century was set in certain limiting social expectations especially for women, especially
Written in 1930, “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is a compelling tale of a southern spinster. Faulkner described the title as “an allegorical title, the meaning was, here was a woman who has had a tragedy and nothing could be done about it, and I pitied her and this was a solute… to the woman you would hand a rose.” (“Colloquies at Nagano Seminar” Faulkner). The story seems as if it would be an average short tale about an old, finicky, haughty southern lady who just wants her way in life, yet as the story continues what the reader originally thought would be a normal story turns morbid and dark.
In the short story “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner, Emily, the protagonist, is shown as someone who’s life is falling apart and brought down by society. Emily in this story could be described as a victim to society and her father. Emily Grierson’s confinement, loss of her father and Homer, and constant criticism caused her, her insanity.