In the story “A Rose for Emily,” authored by William Faulkner, the main character, Emily Grierson, is addressed as Miss Emily. Miss Emily was born in an honored, decent family in political wartime. Miss Emily was raised in a massive castle with many of her father’s servants. The Grierson family referred to their own as the most powerful in the town compared to the other families. At the age of 30 years, Emily was rendered unmarried by her father, who had refused many courters for her daughter. Her father’s defiance made Miss Emily not engage in true love with any other person in the town, and her father was her only bond. This paper illustrates Emily Grierson’s actions that leak to expose her changed mannerism and character.
Miss Emily’s father’s death was too overwhelming for her. The loss was too much for her to handle to a level that “she said that he was not dead. She convinced herself that her father was not dead for three days while the doctors and the minister tried to convince her to give them the order to dispose of her father’s body” (Faulkner, 1). Miss Emily was diagnosed with Stockholm Syndrome, which was due to her refusal to accept that her father was dead. In this case, Miss Emily has her father’s body in her custody, and the people surrounding her are persuading her that her father is dead. In consecutive three days, Miss Emily refused to believe her father’s demise, and she later reacted in the same way with Homer Barron. Miss Emily is also exposed to social typecasts, which seized her back and somewhat prejudiced her actions. Society embraces traditional ethics in which a woman is seen as weak, and the husband guarantees her strength and defense” (Faulkner, 2). Miss Emily’s father was the one gentleman in her life. His demise left her exposed to the social mockery”. The death of Miss Emily’s father would have been the end of her father’s abuse which would be more of freedom to her if she had lived in modern society. However, her available choice was to marry a criminal or a hook due to the particular social typecast.
Miss Emily being raised in a wealthy family gives her credit in a society that believes that she should be married by a decent man of her standards.” The community is resolute to have her within her class” (Faulkner, 3). Society is ready to stop Miss Emily from falling in love with Homer Barron, a Northerner who occurs to be in town for a walkway construction project. Society feels like Emily fails to recall her family conceit by being in love with a man below her social class. They direct Miss Emily’s relative to come and break the bond. Emily’s life is disturbed when she is seen buying poison, and her community people think she wants to end her life. The narration says here that, “we all said the following day, she is going to kill herself, and it will be the perfect act” (Faulkner, 5). The community supports the thought that she is ending her life and does nothing to stop her.
Emily Grierson is depicted as a dishonest and unreliable person, where Homer refuses her marriage proposal after being in love with him for about a year. “Homer refuses the proposal because he wanted to be modern and not overhauled by time which could have made him stupid” (Faulkner,4). One proposing to someone else is frequently a display of profound love to that individual. Nevertheless, after the refusal, Emily ultimately poisons him. The horrible part of Miss Emily becomes more inferior in the case where she chooses not to dispose of Homer’s dead body and sleeps next to the dead body in her bedroom upstairs as if he was still thriving and she loved it. Emily purchases a bunch of men’s items, including a nightshirt, a suit, and a shaving kit, which were all found by the townsfolk after her demise, who broke down the door to her room upstairs after her demise Homer Barron’s dead body was found.
She is allowed by the social chauvinism to legendary hideaway with Homer’s murder. A nearly damp smell is noticed in Emily’s home by the city authorities in Jefferson, who pays an official visit to Emily in her adulthood to collect her taxes, where no one had gone to in 10 years. Nevertheless, no one of the town people, even the town’s authorities, is brave enough to challenge her since she is a decent lady and condemning her of such a matter is ridiculous; Judge Steven says, “Damn it, sir, will you blame a lady to her face of smelling bad?” (Faulkner, 4) So, a set of men sneak around Emily’s house during the night, sprinkling lime around her home to deal with the dank smell. An authorized examination in Emily’s castle would have exposed the decomposing corpse of Emily, and Homer Barron would have been taken to the manuscript. The corpse was revealed decades later after Emily’s demise, which legendary permitted her to go unpunished for the homicide.
Whereas many individuals refer to her as a psychopath, even a bloodthirsty enthusiast, the storyteller entails that “we did not say she was crazy then. We remembered all the suiters her father had driven away, and we knew that with no money, she had no life too so she had nothing left, she would have stick to that which had taken away her chance for better life, as people will” (Faulkner, 6). In this case, the storyteller sees her as not guilty by mitigating why she did not need her father disposed of as well as why she murdered Homer. The teller suggests that the reason why Emily apprehended taking away her abusive father’s corpse is that he took away her every single chance that would have given her gladness. The narrator also indicates that Emily did not dispose of Homer’s dead body since she wanted to have the hollow void filled by someone. Emily was holding on to a bond in which it never happened, or else a past that never turned out to be a part of the future. She is as well scary since she naps exactly next to Homer’s corpse, “we observed that in the next cushion was the depression of ahead as well as a lengthy strand of grim hair” (Faulkner, 3). The smell was so dank in that the residents had to report to the authority, and she slept alongside that rotten corpse of Homer since he disappeared from Jefferson.
Miss Emily had an issue in leasing things of her past, which is justified in three parts. Foremost, she denies issuing her father’s dead body for disposal for three days, convincing herself that he was not dead where she was trapped between the current and the previous. Next, Miss Emily is similarly unable to accept that Homer refused her proposal, so she poisons him and keeps his dead body in her bedroom upstairs. Lastly, she did not pay taxes since she still lived in the outdated traditions. The narrator says that” the mayor from the past, Colonel Satoris appealed that Emily’s father had loaned cash to the town and Emily did not have to pay any taxes in her life time.”
Nevertheless, the narrator guarantees that the reader can see that her inner self-conflict is the source of her failure to let go. Miss Emily’s family was once superior to others in the town, making her a victim of the patriarchal that she could not let go of. She always lived in the traditions she stuck into and was scared of shifting.
In conclusion, Miss Emily is denied many chances that would have brought her joy by his father, Homer, and society. She is reserved in loneliness by equally her father and the society, which has also seized her out of labor and deprived her of the chance to marry. The never-ending grief changes her into a sociopathic murderer and a dangerous behavior throughout the story.
Reference
Faulkner William, (1930), “A Rose for Emily” Robert DiYanni. 6th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008. Print
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