Recommended: Social class and its effects on children
-“So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily 's lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork,” (Faulkner II). -“When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad,” (Faulkner II). -“The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid,” (Faulkner
Miss Emily comes from an old wealthy line of family in the deep south. Faulkner story is highly symbolic, enhancing miss Emily’s values and character. “Miss Emily is described as a fallen monument to the chivalric American South”(Allmon). Faulkner uses the setting of the story to show the emotional state of Emily. The female-male relationship between Emily and her father is strict, oppressive, and controlling; Their relationship has a major impact on Emily’s character Throughout the short story.
Emily’s Mental Deterioration After getting over the initial shock of finding out that the mysterious woman that everyone was talking about was going to sleep each night with a decaying body next to her, it makes sense for the reader to question her mental state. If the reader took a closer look at the town’s description of her, they will realize that as time went on, Emily’s will power began to deteriorate. When she was young, she was the topic of everybody’s conversation, however, she did not let that bother her and walked down the streets with her head held high. Emily took over the old house after her father’s death and kept a few servants around to keep the house tidy, nonetheless, the outside of the house was not kept in the best of conditions.
Not only that, as Homer becomes a popular figure in town and is seen taking Emily on buggy rides on Sunday afternoons, it scandalizes the town and increases the condescension and pity they have for Emily. They feel that she is forgetting her family pride and becoming involved with a man beneath her station. Even though Emily is from the high class family, it does not mean that she is living up to the pleasant lifestyle. As a matter of fact, she is actually living a gloomy and desolate life, which is essentially the opposite lifestyle expected for Emily's rank in society by the townspeople. Although Emily once represented a great southern tradition centering on the landed gentry with their vast holdings and considerable resources, Emily's legacy has devolved, making her more a duty and an obligation than a romanticized vestige of a dying order.
It is clear that in her era, Miss Emily was seen as traditional American Southern women, who lived to become an inferior women to man but was later a burden to her society. She was a lady who was secluded from society, lived a psychopathic life, which at the end, and was no secret for the town’s people. While Miss Emily was alive, she lived in a secluded home of a single father, thus leading her to be dependent upon him. She did not have much of a socially engaged life, for her father drove men away. When he finally died, Miss Emily told the townspeople that he was not dead, and finally, on the third day, let the town’s people buried him (William Faulkner 1105).
As he walks in, Josephine screams and falls down dead; the happiness that she had felt was too much for her weak heart. Likewise, “A Rose for Emily,” written by William Faulkner, opens on a woman, Emily Grierson, except this time the woman is already dead. The story is told from the perspective of the townspeople, a collective “we.” They recount when she was exempted from her taxes, and then when she refused to pay them after the death of the person who remitted her. Then, the townspeople go back further to a time when Emily’s house had a stench so foul, a judge was consulted about what to do; it was decided that a few townspeople would stealthily sprinkle lime about her property in order to not confront her and seem discourteous.
Throughout the course of the story Faulkner leaves bits of clues and glimpses into what happens when tradition will not make way for progress, like a literary bread crumb trail, through the utilization of metaphors, symbols, and allusions. Dust is a prominent metaphor in the story, representing the decay of Emily’s life (and mental condition) and the decline of a by-gone era. When the deputation of the board of aldermen visit her home to
In many situations, the people within the town notice Miss Emily’s odd behavior, but they choose to maintain peace with her instead of helping her when she clearly needs it the most. However, this need to preserve the respectful image of Miss Emily ultimately leads to her emotional breakdown of isolation and
To compare, Faulkner shares a slice of evidence as to why Emily has an uncontrollable obsession for the dead, “After her father 's death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all.” (Faulkner) Given these points, her father becomes arrogant and isolates her from society, or anyone who is willing to take Miss Emily from him. When her father, the only man in the world who has loved her,
Telling the story in an irregular order, Faulkner develops a sense of suspense by adding details to the mysterious Miss Emily. “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care: a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town” (451). The reader learns that Miss Emily had been seen as an eccentric woman that the people of the town had to take care of and overlook, ultimately overlooking her as a suspect in Homer Barron’s disappearance. Miss Emily often disappears into her house for months and years at a time,
After Emily’s father’s death, she doesn’t keep the house clean anymore, the first floor is closed off, and the home begins to smell of a strong stench. Dust begins to fall on everything in the house “…smelled of dust and disuse—a close, dank smell” (Faulkner 629). As the house is no longer being maintained, so too is Emily as she begins to age and descends into madness. Thomas Dilworth, journalist, quoted “In her personal life, Emily reproduced the pattern of this social myth by twice keeping at home the bodies of dead loved ones while refusing to acknowledge their deaths” (Dilworth). Faulkner relates the use of arsenic as a symbol of getting rid of a rat, specifically, Homer because he had no intentions of marrying Emily.
In his short story, “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner intends to convey a message to his audience about the unwillingness in human nature to accept change and more specifically the secretive tendencies of aristocrats in the South during the early 20th century. In order to do this, Faulkner sets up a story in which he isolates and old aristocratic woman, Miss Emily, from her fellow townspeople and proceeds to juxtapose her lifestyle with theirs. In doing this he demonstrates her stubborn refusal to change along with the town, but also Among several literary devices the author employs to achieve this contrast, Faulkner sets up his narrator as a seemingly reliable, impartial and knowledgeable member of the community in which Miss Emily lives by using a first person plural, partially omniscient point of view. The narrator is present for all of the scenes that take place in the story, but does not play any role in the events, and speaks for the town as a whole. Faulkner immediately sets up his narrator as a member of the community in the first line of the story, saying that when Miss Emily died “our whole town went to her funeral.”
Even the narrator’s often disjointed accounts of the past all push towards a fond remembrance and need without a want in today’s society. “an eyesore among eyesores” Miss Emily’s house was called, that was to show that even with its cobwebs and peeling paint this building stood as a testament to an age long gone, a
Why would I make a great addition to the gifted and talented academy? I had to think about this question, but I came up with question to rebound off of this. Why would you not want a kid who is well behaved, extremely talented, and willing to go above and beyond? I am willing to get out of my comfort zone, and work to high standards. I want to be an overall well-rounded student who can choose his own path in life.
Emily’s house is described as “lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay” (451) and “an eyesore among eyesores” (451). Her house is from the Old South and is outdated compared to the rest of the buildings in the town, but she refuses to change anything with the house, leaving it to decay with her. The street that her house is on “had once been our most select street” (451), but now everything has changed around her house and her house is the only thing remaining from the Old South on the street. Industrialism is occurring around this time and is changing the town, but she refuses to change her house to match with the New South. On the same street as her house, “garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily’s house was left” (451).
