The Electra Complex In A Rose For Emily

In “ A Rose for Emily”, Miss Emily’s erratic behavior becomes outright bizarre, and the reader, like the townspeople in the story, is left wondering how to explain the fact that Miss Emily murdered and spent years living and sleeping with the corpse of Homer Barron. It is clear that Emily suffers from the female version of the Oedipal Complex, which led her to kill Homer Barron. Many of Freud’s writings investigate the nature of sex, and often involve a discussion of human genitalia, and sexual gratification. Within the development of young girls, Freud discusses a phenomenon known as the Electra Complex, which is the feminine counterpart to his theory of the Oedipal Complex. As said in “ A Rose for Emily” excerpt “ Miss Emily a slender figure in

This explains Emily’s dependency on the only man she is allowed to talk to, her father. This shows that Emily’s sexual repression prevented her libido from being transferred to a male outside of her father daughter relationship. This goes on to prove what’s said in “ Horror and Perverse Delight: Faulkner’s ‘A Rose for Emily” excerpt “ Deprived of other subjects, Emily’s desire’s focus on the father, and she clings “ to that which had robbed her,” as her initial refusal to acknowledge her father’s death and the ubiquity of his portrait suggest. Emily goes so far as to identify in part with her father, and he murder of her Homer and the preservation of his body are thus the results of conflicting impulses.” Emily’s inability to cope with her father’s death and even more with the fact that the townspeople took his corpse from her caused her to transfer her libido to a surrogate male: Homer Barron. It can be inferred that Emily killed Homer Barron and kept his corpse in her bed to replace the corpse the town’s people robbed her