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Societal Expectations In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

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In “A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner shows a society where customs and traditions play a major role. Emily is subjected to societal expectations that put excessive pressure on her. The society is such that anyone going down the uncommon path is specially chastised. Emily has dreams like every girl, she wants to find love and get married, but her father wants to keep her in the house to take care of him (“Authors on Their Work” 2013). Eventually, Emily seems to retaliate with force that causes unrest in the society too. But she also shows an acceptance of customs and it gains her a place in society, things seem to come back to normal once she does what is normal for the society. The starting of the novel already groups men and women into different categories, attending the funeral for different reason. Men are there to give their final farewell to a fallen hero while women are there to go through the things at Emily’s home. The women are portrayed as intrusive and controlling when Emily is going around with Homer Barron. In fact the ladies influence the Baptist minister enough to call Emily out. Their conversation does not bear fruit with the minister refusing to go back to her house, his wife informs Emily’s cousin about her wrongdoings. This theme continues when Emily’s …show more content…

They criticize men for not being practical, not too keen to act on things that they should act on and their being docile. This is depicted by the collective criticism of Emily’s housekeeper by all the ladies. Not only are there gender divides, there are divisions based on societal expectations and traditions. The hereditary responsibilities and the mention of Griersons as gross helps to create a divide between the society. The views of these people are usually collective views with no individual voice giving a different opinion. This collective group includes everyone but Emily, she is just a victim of their judgement and

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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.

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“A Rose for Emily” The story “A Rose for Emily” was written before the American Civil War, a time when wealthy Southern whites owned large farms and exploited slave labor to keep on operating at the lowest cost possible. Change in the south was very difficult and many people would not accept the change. Faulkner expresses how if you are not accepting to the new ways and changes in the south you will end up old and moldy, like Miss Emily.

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Emily’s life was always full of seclusion and she refuses to let her first love go. The townspeople uses many different people to influence Emily to end the affair. When the northerner refuses to marry her to satisfy everyone, she uses her idolized freedom of the town to her advantage and murders her lover. Therefore, everyone was happy, she does not have to live without him and the townspeople believe she obeyed their wishes by ending the affair.

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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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This is contrasted with her father's dominance, as he exerts his authority over Emily by controlling her interactions with the outside world and forbidding her from pursuing romantic relationships. In the end, Emily's actions in the story demonstrate her rebellion against the male-dominated society in which she lives. By taking control of her own life and making decisions that go against the expectations placed upon her, she becomes a symbol of female empowerment. In this way, Faulkner uses the character of Emily to highlight the unequal treatment of women in Southern society and to challenge traditional gender

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In “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner utilizes symbolism to emphasize the story’s theme and bring about a deeper understanding. The story opens with the news that Miss Emily Grierson, a social recluse

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In many situations, the people within the town notice Miss Emily’s odd behavior, but they choose to maintain peace with her instead of helping her when she clearly needs it the most. However, this need to preserve the respectful image of Miss Emily ultimately leads to her emotional breakdown of isolation and

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In William Faulkner’s short story, A Rose for Emily, he portrays a power struggle between modernizing society and the ideals of the “Old South”. In this rapidly changing society, one individual refuses to conform to such change. Miss Emily, much like her house, stubbornly rejects change, in a desperate attempt to maintain the values of the “Old South”. Her house itself stands as a reminder of a past era. In a city that was moving towards a new age, the house stood stubbornly against conformity as a representation of the “Old South”.

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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

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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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She could not escape the pain and mourning which came with the death of her father, thus providing the residents a platform of satisfaction over Emily's grief. This is the first form of direct resentment that the people expressed towards her and they believed that since she had finally experienced hard times they could “pity Miss. Emily” (pg. 1105) because she appeared to be equal to the common man. To the residents she finally appeared “humanized” (pg. 1105) instead of some "untouchable," public figure. The people could view her as a normal person now because she finally faced the hardships that they experienced every day.

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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

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In William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily,” it depicts the treatment of women in the south if they did not find a husband and the strain it put on Emily’s fragile mind. When Miss Emily was around the age of thirty and still not married the townspeople saw her as a pauper. It seemed like when her father was still alive no man was good enough for his daughter. Thought out the years there was gentlemen callers but they none of them were good enough in her father’s eyes so he always pushed them away from her. Southern women had no choice but to play the roles given to them by the men in their lives whether it be their fathers or their husbands.

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This shows that even though Emily was changing herself just because of a recent problem that happened in her life, there was still good in it no matter how others felt. Emily was not only changing herself due to the recent death, but for herself because its what made her feel better whether others like it or not. She did what she felt was right for herself and made her

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In a typical Parent-Child relationship the parental figure raises the child until adulthood and occasionally still supports him or her throughout life. According to Sophie Bloom, M.S.L.Ac, by voicing their concerns and their attitudes towards things in the world, parents greatly influence their child and their child’s development. Therefore having a parental figure while growing up is extremely important for a child or a creature's development. A parent abandoning their child can also cause severe consequences later in the child's life. According to Edward Kruk, P.h.D. “(85 percent of youth in prison have an absent father; fatherless children are more likely to offend and go to jail as adults)”.

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