A Rose For Emily Mental Deterioration Essay

Emily’s Mental Deterioration
The short story “A Rose for Emily” is written by, William Faulkner, a Nobel Prize winner novelist. The story is told back and forth in a series of flashbacks of Emily’s life, by the townspeople who were more curious about her life than anything else. Emily was not like the rest of the townspeople and didn’t care to mingle. Emily was known as a respectful monument, as she was the last member from an aristocratic family from after the Civil war. When Miss Emily passed away the same townspeople attend her funeral “the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house” (Faulkner, par. 1). Where they discovered many things about miss Emily and her mental decay. Emily’s mental state is symbolic of the decay

At one point in time Emily’s house was white, nicely decorated, and set on select street, now it was the only house “left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay” (par. 2). The home, even when Miss Emily was alive, was dim, with the approaching smell of dust and disuse, because of little to no cleaning and use of the spaces. A set of deputations were sent to Emily’s home for official affairs and were led into the parlor of Emily’s home where they saw “a faint dust rose sluggishly around their thighs” (par. 5). as they sat down after light was slightly let in. The furnishing in Emily’s home were dusty and only slightly visible due to light being let in. Faulkner illustrates poor home upkeeping and basic house duties to keep a house in mint condition as a deterioration in Emily’s mental state. The lack of cleaning and repurposing to the point where dust is easily visible, and darkness is the norm is a sign of disinterest, forgetfulness, and

In the story her physical decline symbolizes her mental decline. Miss Emily was seen at a pharmacy once, over the age of 30, only “thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes” (par 36). Towards the last couple of times miss Emily was seen by members of the board, in her home, she appeared as a “small, fat woman in black” (par. 6). Emily’s voice grew to be dry and cold; her appearance was that of an obese, bloated woman, with eyes on her face that seemed like “two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough” (par. 6). When Emily met Homer, the love of her life, who at one point “disappeared” in the story, according to the townspeople, she was well seen. Shortly after Homer was last seen, Emily was also unheard of for some time. When Emily was finally next seen miss Emily had changed “she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray” (par. 50). Emily’s physical decline symbolizes a mental decay, as her mental state decayed, her body expressed the toll that was taking on her