Mental Illness In A Rose For Emily By William Faulkner

Emily’s Hair
“A Rose for Emily”, written by William Faulkner , Emily seems to be a normal woman with normal problems. The further you read into the story you can see that Emily has some sort of serious mental illness, such as depersonalization disorder. Depersonalization disorder occurs when an individual persistently or repeatedly has a sense that things around them are not real, or they have the feeling that they observe themselves from outside their bodies. Feelings of depersonalization can have an individual feel very disturbed and feel like they are losing their grip on reality or living in a dream. In “A Rose for Emily”, the significance of the locked room and her hair found on the pillow shows that Emily might have seemed a little normal, but she was mentally ill.

“She told them that her father was not dead. She did this for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body” (Faulkner 453). After three days she finally breaks down and lets the townspeople bury her father. In this time of the story it seems that Emily cannot let go and after she accepts the fact that her father is gone. After completely reading the whole story, this is the first sign of Emily’s illness. As humans all individuals have lost someone in our past and have had a challenging time letting go of the fact that that person is no longer amongst the living. Someone that can live with a corpse in their home for any amount of time has something wrong with them