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Social structure of the south
Essays on the south
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Social structure of the south
Essays on the south
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
One can assume her marriage was not a good one. Miss Emily Grierson was abused at a young age by her father Mr. Grierson. Emily grew up under the shadow of her father and it haunted Emily for a long time. Many people grow up differently, and the way they grow up could affect the person they become
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.
The racial boundaries that occupied the town surfaced within the mentalities of the people. The racial boundaries served as another method of control for Emily’s life because she was not able to release the prejudices that plagued her town. She was guilty of having an African American slave that took care of her and tended to her everyday needs. Emily’s servant Tobe served as the bridge between Emily and the outside world. She allowed the ignorance of racial segregations to manipulate her mind when it came to justifying having a slave.
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).
The previous lavishness of the “big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies…set on what had once been [the] most select street” (437) indicates that Emily came from a well-off family that was probably highly respected. The whiteness of the house can be taken to symbolize the innocence of her youth, and that as she got older her macabre habits manifested themselves and polluted that innocence, leaving the house dingy and tainted. The condition of the house when Emily dies is that of a worn down vestige to the past, “an eyesore among eyesores” (437), representing how the towns people saw her. She was a curiosity, a clandestine entity that could only be unraveled after her death when there was no one left to safe guard the dark secrets of her house. The house stands as a monument to a lost time and a testament to tradition that has no place in the modern era, much like Emily
In Ellison’s story, he uses a young female to portray inequality in the South. While the black teenagers were given an opportunity to give a speech they were taken to an anteroom where they saw the town's most influential white men around a naked woman. This woman hated what she was doing but did it anyway and when she tried to escape “they caught her just as she reached a door… I saw the terror and disgust in her eyes,” but they were not allowed to do anything because she was a woman and they were black, the naked woman symbolizes the inequality women suffered in the South. In Faulkner’s story, he uses Emily as a way to symbolize the old south. Emily was set to marry a man named Homer Barron but, “Homer himself had remarked — he liked men”.
Because her family was prominent in the town of Jefferson, Emily Grierson was watched her entire life and wondered about by everyone. The townspeople had a lot to do with Emily’s changing mental condition because they constantly gossiped about everything that happened in her life. It generally
He also shows the relationship between Emily and her dead father and how Emily cannot let go of people that show a love interest in her or the people who look after her in that she must be attached to them even after death. Faulkner depicts an Emily that was once young and vibrant, who maintained the Grierson home and kept it in a pristine condition. Faulkner relays to readers that because Emily was unable to control her own destiny and was powerless under her father’s hand, she became a recluse and ultimately went into a downward spiral. After sensing and believing that her first real love will leave her, Emily purchases arsenic and it is believed that she will kill herself because there is no point in living if no one will love her
Similarly, the protagonist in “A Rose for Emily” is Emily Grierson. The house that she lives in drives her mind to inhabit it in dusty and dark. Miss Emily is a mysterious character. The impression that Miss Emily gives us about her is that she is a “necrophiliac”. Necrophilia means a sexual attraction to dead bodies.
As the story goes on, Faulkner describes Emily’s death: “When Miss Emily Grierson died the whole town went to her funeral: the men out of respectful affection for a fallen monument and the women mostly out of curiosity” (Faulkner). Faulkner emphasizes that while men are caring and respectful women act only based on curiosity. Indeed, the role of women in the southern society is less significant than the role of
Just as they were about to resort to law and force she breaks down and buried her father quickly.” (Faulkner 453) Miss Emily tries to keep her father’s body so she isn’t left lonely. She tries to keep him until the townspeople basically force her to bury him. The second reason Miss Emily may be crazy and mentally ill is because she kills Homer Baron.
The story revolves around a southern woman named Emily Grierson who is the protagonist of the story. The time period of the story happened roughly around late 19th to early 20th century. The setting took place in a fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi. The narrator of the story is the people around Emily, which is full of judgmental and gossipers. In the story the narrator describes how Emily change physically and mentally over the years.
These changes on the street cause her house to look out of place, because her house is from the Old South while everything else is the New South. Her town was also getting sidewalks as a part of the industrialization, which led to her meeting Homer Barron. There social changes going on around this time. One change in the town was “when the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily rejected letting them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it” (455). She refused this change, because it was causing a change to her house, which
The story is set right after the civil war. Emily and her father are high class people who owned slaves to do all the things around the house. Because of her social status everyone in the town would never think of Emily as someone who would sleep with a dead body. When everyone found out about Emily’s secret it was a shock to everyone. Necrophilia is not something someone who was first class would do.