Emily Grierson's Mental Illness

Mental Illness in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”

We all love someone. Someone more than others. We spend our whole lives hoping to find that special someone. However, some of us do not. And those people can probably relate to Emily Grierson. She didn’t just kill her husband, she preserved him. Homer has been just the right guy at just the right time. In a Rose for Emily, Emily’s mental illness makes her an outsider and forces her to deviate from the dominant culture in her town. Her deviation affects all aspects of the short story including her characterization, the mood and tone of the story, as well as the overall thematic elements of the work.

Emily Grierson is described as “a small, fat woman” who lived within a modernizing town full

He had driven off all of her suitors so now she is alone (Madden) but without the control of her father, she was free. With freedom came Homer. ¨By entering a love affair with Homer Barron, Emily briefly rebelled against southern values and then, by ending her affair with him, at least as far as the townspeople were concerned, she conformed again to those values.¨ (Dilworth 251). A sexually loving relationship between a white lady and a black man was as unthinkable then as, decades earlier, marriage had been between a queen and a commoner. (Dilworth 256). ¨She killed Homer largely to placate society, although that, in her deranged mind, also secured him as her lover forever.¨ (Dilworth 251). Emily´s behavior suggests that she is terribly lonely and is desperate for companionship. (Dilworth 253). ¨This story is first and foremost a brilliant exploration of how culture and gender determine one’s reading of character and motivation: Emily gets away with murder because everyone expects her behavior to conform to the conventions of gender and class. ¨ (Fick 2). ¨At the conclusion of the story, this killing is eclipsed in the imagination of readers by evidence of some sort of necrophilia.¨ (Dilworth 251). Emily endowed them, Homer and her father, with fictitious life beyond death. (Dilworth

Miss Emily appears to be withdrawn and her figure as an outsider is more developed. The townspeople were shocked when Emily married Homer. Emily’s handprint was indented on the pillow and a strand of gray hair was found. Some people may argue that Emily Grierson is guilty of murder and that mental illness has no involvement in the murder of Homer. However, one cannot just assume but one one must analyze textual evidence to support a claim. As quoted by Shannon L. Alder, “Sensitive people usually love deeply and hate deeply. They don't know any other way to live than by extremes because their emotional thermostat is broken.” Not all mentally ill people are violent. In fact, Emily was never evaluated, diagnosed, or treated by a mental health professional by any means (Smith). “ Yet by the story’s conclusion, the reader can go back through the narrative and identify many episodes in which Miss Emily’s character and behavior hinted at the possibility of a mental illness, even if the town wanted to deny this fact and leave her intact as a social idol. “ The information in the story can be used to conclude that “Miss Emily suffered from schizophrenia as defined by the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-IV criteria (American Psychiatric Association 159). “ “It is reasonable to propose that Miss Emily developed this mental illness as a response to the