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Mental Insanity In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

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A Rose For Emily, by William Faulkner, is a short story about a woman living in what is presumably the south, sometime after the civil war, who goes crazy and murders her so called “sweet-heart”. (Faulkner, part II, paragraph 1) There are a few clues throughout the story as to Miss Emily’s mental stability, as well as to the causes of her actions beyond simply insanity. The simplest way to justify Miss Emily’s actions of murder, is to pin it all on mental insanity, and while she is very likely crazy, there are also subtle hints of reasons throughout the story for her eventually murdering Homer Barron. Mental insanity, which would allow her to consciously murder in the first place, appears to run in her family, as her great-aunt, Lady Wyatt, “..had gone completely crazy at last..” (Faulkner, part II, paragraph 10) and died, sometime before the death of her father. The death of her father was quite an instrumental event in allowing her to murder Barron. The narrator of the story reveals that Emily’s father felt “None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such.” (Faulkner, part II, …show more content…

If a man leaves a woman, for any reason, a somewhat stereotypical excuse for him, even in this day and age, is “she’s crazy.” What better reason would her sweetheart have for leaving her, than his realization of her insanity? The narrator said that “...her sweetheart-the one we believed would marry her- had deserted her.” (Faulkner, part II, paragraph 1) The whole of the town had believed he would marry her, yet one day he up and left with no explanation, which can lead to the conclusion that he discovered she was crazy, and didn’t want to deal with it. The narrator also specifically says that he deserted her, implying a psychologically traumatic experience for Miss Emily, and one that could have been the last straw before she truly lost her

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Now the readers start to believe that Emily might have had something coming to her, and don’t pity her as much as before hand. However in lines 1 to 3, nearing the end of part two, it is made apparent the person of clear blame was her father. Miss Emily was a “slender figure in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip,[...] framed by the back-flung front door.” (Lines 1-3). Readers begin to realize why she became “crazy,” (Line 18), and that it was partially not her fault, it was her father’s.

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So, after the father died, Emily was all alone and did not think any of the guys in the town were good enough to be with her. In addition, Emily feared that since her dad had left her, then the next person to walk into her life would leave her too. Furthermore, when Emily’s father past away, she denied him being gone for multiple

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As years pass by no proper men would want to marry her and even if someone did, Miss Emily was in a unhealthy relationship with her father and that has taken over her life. When the only men in her life which was her father dies Miss Emily loses her awareness of reality and becomes mentally unstable. Your honor probably have heard about how Miss Emily won’t let anyone dispose her father's remains. Imagine if you will, a woman that never had a chance at life since her mother died, and all of a sudden her father also dies. Her father was taking care of her, even though he stopped her from going out but he played a big

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Essay Comparing The Yellow Wallpaper And A Rose For Emily

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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).

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He can not handle all the trauma he went through and commits suicide to finally make them stop. Emily is not any different since she also suffers from depression. Due to being left alone all her life she became isolated to the point that, “she went out very little… people hardly saw her at all” (Faulkner 1). A key point in depression is isolation. The sadness she felt had accumulated to the point where she could no longer face people anymore.

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She is mentally disturbed, and driven to her act by insanity. Miss Emily kills her victim, Barron, to keep him around because she truly loves him and she does not want to let go. Both protagonists have a distorted perception of

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1852 Words | 8 Pages

Throughout the story, the main character, Miss Emily Grierson, shows signs of what appears to be some form of mental illness. Although Faulkner never states that Miss Emily has anything wrong with her mental health, he does provide enough evidence to support that she is not psychologically stable. In “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner portrays the main character as a mysterious icon of the small town of Jefferson, Mississippi. As the story states, Emily’s father is an admirable figure in the city of Jefferson. After his passing, the townspeople show the same respect for Emily, as well.

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Themes in A Rose For Emily And The Birth Mark By William Faulkner

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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,

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This pushed poor Emily over the edge of insanity and led her to commit the heinous act of murder. In the back of her mind, she probably had only one thought if she couldn't have him, then no one else ever

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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,

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Love And In Death In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

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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

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Literary Devices In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

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When Emily’s body was found dead, her servant for someone who is visiting and as soon as he realizes she is dead he “walk[s] through the house and out the back and [is] never seen again.” To him he thinks that the town is going to blame him for Emily’s death even if he didn’t do it. He believes the town is going to kill him because that’s what they did back

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She was alone, she was humiliated by the town, she had to hide away because she was not able to cope. In Tim O’Brien’s article he states, “After her death, Emily is reunited with the other members of her southern class …”, which means, in death, with the people she loved she will no longer be alone” (O’Brien

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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.

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