A Rose For Emily Letter To Her Father

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Often times people will have a hard time letting go of that which has hurt them the most. William Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily” depicts how Emily Grierson clings to her father, her love for Homer Barron, and her superior status which all lead to her grotesque mental and physical decline. To begin, Miss Emily finds it hard to part with her father even though he deterred any possible suitors from her. As a result, she is isolated from others, leaving her father as her only companion. For this reason, Emily struggles to let go of her father both physically and emotionally. When her father died in 1894, she held his body for three days, denying that he was actually dead. Although time moved on, Miss Emily did not. She began to resemble her father with her “tarnished gold cane” and “invisible gold watch” that expresses how time had stood still for her. Furthermore, she continues to dress in black as …show more content…

She has the “quality of her father” inside her that fosters her arrogance. Consequently, the townspeople begin to say “poor Emily” as she “[becomes] humanized” and loses her place in society. Although she is dwindling, she continues to hold her “head high” around the town so the public wouldn’t view her differently; however, people notice and are glad that “at last they [can] pity” her. Besides the pity of the town, many people fears Miss Emily, allowing her to do as she pleased such as getting the arsenic without mentioning what it would be used for as the law requires. As a result of the conflicting feelings of the town, Emily is isolated from many of them as well as her cousins, causing her to stay home and collect dust like the rest of her home with its “stubborn and coquettish decay.” Not only is the house Emily’s barrier from the outside world, but it is also where her past was hoarded and manifested from her emotional attachment to the

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