A Rose For Emily Response Essay

The past is permanent. No matter how hard one tries or how far one runs, there is no changing or escaping the past because it clings and latches on. The past is defined as having existed or taken place in a period before the present (Webster’s Dictionary). Through these experiences and recollections emerge people who are forever changed and affected. The tiniest moment or conversation could change the trajectory of someone’s whole life; therefore, no soul in this world can say that their peers, environment, or experiences have not affected their actions and thoughts. One may not notice the change because it happens subtly and subconsciously. The short story: “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner uses traumatic situations and life experiences

The story takes place in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1930s. Emily, someone the town feels obligated to care for, is dealing with losing her father and being a single woman because of his over-particular ways. After his death, she refuses to pay taxes on the only thing left to her: the house. She stops leaving the house almost entirely. However, there is one thing that she desires: love. Emily’s father turned away all her suitors and made her undesirable to most, leaving her single and desperate for a physical and emotional connection. With this being the case, she found Homer Barron and married him. To the public, the marriage seems normal until it is revealed that Emily bought arsenic, and she and Homer disappeared into the house. At the latter end of the story, the town discovers both Emily’s and Homer’s dead bodies in the house but in separate rooms. Their seemingly normal deaths turn sinister when the people realize that Homer’s body is partly

Homer, introduced shortly after her father’s death, is characterized as a popular day laborer from the North. Their relationship is strange because Homer had openly said: “that he was not a marrying man” (Faulkner 531), and the townspeople knew that he liked men. Once these qualities of Homer surface, the question of Emily’s motives in her pursuit of him arises. Through the psychoanalytic lens, the answer is that Emily no longer wanted to be alone. Emily is now in her thirties, and after a lifetime of her father denying her access to romance, Emily becomes fed up with being single. So desperate for companionship, she is willing to leap at any opportunity that comes her way. In addition, one could also link her attraction to Homer to his new arrival in the town. Homer is not from Jackson, so it automatically makes him a target. With Homer, Emily does not have to worry about him judging or pitying her because he has no prior knowledge of her grievances. He is also of a lower social class than Emily, so rather than turning her away, it intrigues her, for she knows he would yield to her because she can offer him a better