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Examples Of Power In A Rose For Emily

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Harley Zepeda Professor Delaney English 110 March 10th, 2023 Power Through the Lense of Relationships William Faulkner's 'A Rose for Emily' is a short story about the reclusive Emily Grierson, a woman from a prominent southern family who becomes increasingly isolated and disturbed as she ages. Through Emily’s relationships with her father, the town officials, her past love interests, and domestic servant, Faulkner examines how power is gained, maintained, and challenged. Emily’s father, a wealthy southern man holds a lot of power over the town and his daughter Emily in the story. He is described as a "stern and haughty" man who does not allow his daughter to date or socialize …show more content…

When Emily meets Homer Barron, a northern laborer who comes to town to pave the streets, she becomes infatuated with him as they begin to spend time together. However, their budding relationship is met with disapproval and criticism from the townspeople, who are opposed to a southern aristocrat being romantically involved with a working-class northerner. This disapproval intensifies after Emily's father dies, and the townspeople worry that she will lose her status in society if she marries someone beneath her social class. Emily's powerlessness in this situation is evident, as she is unable to assert her own desires and must conform to the expectations of others. Through this aspect of the story, Faulkner highlights the impact of societal norms and expectations on personal relationships and the ways in which they can be used to exert power over individuals. We also see an unfair abuse of power on Emily’s part, for she would rather Homer be dead than live a life without her. This is a way to exert power, for when he is dead, Emily is able to lock him in a room in her home for as long as she pleases, doing as she wishes with his corpse. This is a very eerie and gruesome example of the lengths some will go to have power in a situation. "Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair" (Faulkner). This quote comes at the end of the story, when the townspeople discover Homer's decomposed corpse in Emily's bed, alongside a pillow with a strand of hair on it. The fact that there was a strand of hair on the pillow insinuates that Emily was laying next to Homer at some

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Mr. Grierson, Emily’s father, prohibited her from socializing with men because, in Mr. Grierson’s eyes, there was no man suitable for Emily. After being tired of being alone for so long, Emily decided to date Homer Barron. Homer Barron was a Northerner and worked as a foreman for a construction company. The older folks of the town were excited for Emily, there was even talk about marriage between the couple. However, the younger crowd did not believe Homer was that of Ms. Griersons high status.

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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.

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Emily knows how the people in the town stare and talk about her dating Homer and she does not care. Emily likes to hold on to the past and considering how she was brought up she cannot let Homer go when he states that their relationship is coming to an end. She decides she will hold on to him anyway she can. She inds up killing Homer and keeps him in the house with her. People complain of the smell but the townspeople will not confront her.

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The author states, ¨After her father’s death She rarely went out - said Emily began to isolate herself from everyone and the world. It was at this time that the town "could pity" her, and with her now "left alone, and a pauper" she was finally "humanized". The people of Jefferson did not once question Emily or consider her a threat to others because she covered up her absurd actions. Aside from her father, she meets with a blue-collar worker from the North, Homer Barron as her love interest.

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Homer Barron is described as “a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face” (Faulkner 4). No woman wants to feel as if they’re unattractive, especially when it comes to someone they like in an intimate way. However, Emily’s problem wasn’t that she was unattractive because according to Faulkner, she was quite beautiful in her youth. The ultimate issue did not lie on Emily, but on Homer Barron because of his odd remark that he liked men. Emily must have been confused and a tad bit sad to find out that the man she liked didn’t like her back.

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“A Rose for Emily” is a dark, suspenseful Gothic tale in which a young girl is put on a pedestal by a town who sees her as haughty and scornful. Miss Emily Grierson’s father controls her and her love life, pushing away all people until he dies and Emily is left alone. As her life goes on the townspeople watch her and judge Emily, almost turning her life into a spectacle to be talked about. At her death, a gruesome sight is unfolded when her lover of over forty years ago is found decomposed in her upstairs room. William Faulkner effectively builds epic suspense in “A Rose for Emily” by the unchronological order of the story, the treatment of Emily’s father towards her, and her family’s history of mental illness.

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Throughout the story, Faulkner constantly displayed how Emily isolated herself from the town of Jefferson, with a couple of exceptions of going out with Barron and shopping for arsenic and men clothing. Although Emily is distant from Jefferson, she somehow became the talk of the townspeople. Her father was the only close relationship that Emily had because he would not let anyone date her. Since her father died and left her all by herself, she had trouble accepting his death and letting go of his body. Now that Emily has fallen in love with Barron, she does not want to let go of him.

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During the story where Emily gets arsenic from the druggist, Faulkner's tone conveys a sense of exhaustion to the reader. His use of weariness and suspense, combined with gossip about the arsenic, leads others to believe Emily will either kill herself or persuade Homer Barron to marry her: "So the next day we all said, "She will kill herself." "She will persuade him yet" (Faulkner 6). Homer Barron is then to be seen once going through the kitchen door: "A neighbor saw the man admitting him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening.

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This can be seen from her perception and description of the man who shares her “special” seat as a “… fine old man” and the woman as “a big old woman” (101). Her Surname 2 remembrance of the previous Sunday’s patient Englishman and his nagging hard to please wife whom she wanted to shake also shows her envy for women with male companionship. In Faulkner’s story A Rose for Emily, Emily is seen as a person who suffers from isolation from her community, by tradition and by law. Her isolation from the community and love is what seems to perturb her most; she is unable to accept the idea that her father is dead and she remains in denial.

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Homer worked for a construction company with niggers while Miss Emily came from a fortunate family. The reaction of the community is that she is better than him, not realizing that they should be able to love whoever they want, without any rules or social

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