Judge Stevens says to one of the townspeople, “’will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?’” (545), which provides the reader with even more sympathy than before. At this point in the story, Miss Emily just seems like a poor old woman with nobody left to love. As we read on, Faulkner provides more details about Miss Emily, which might suggest her slight insanity. For the first three days after her father’s death, Miss Emily acted as if her father was still alive, keeping the dead body with her until the townspeople threatened to resort to law and force to bury the body. At one point, Miss Emily goes to the druggist to buy arsenic.
Conversely, Paul’s story is actually tragic in nature. Motherly love is supposed to be unconditional and unwavering; Paul however, never seems to be loved by his mother no matter what he does. Both Emily Grierson, the southern lady and Paul the young child suffer from Oedipus complexes. Emily loved her father and refused to give up his dead body for three days after he died. She attempts to replace him with a man that is similar, her lover Homer Baron, who carries a horsewhip like her father.
It is very hard on Miss Emily to accept her father’s death, so hard that she keep his body in the same place of his death for three days. The townspeople say, “poor Emily. Her kinfolk should come to her.” These are all instances of insanity. Another instance of insanity is when Miss Emily goes to buy arsenic. “‘I want some poison’ said Miss Emily, and doesn’t tell the druggist why”(704).
Emily assumed that he would wed her but caught wind that he had said he was “not a marrying man”. Emily could not let go of the only other man she had ever had in her life. Due to her insanity, she killed Homer Barron one night with arsenic. The reason she killed him was because she wanted him to be with her for the rest of her life. After the disappearance of Homer Barron, Emily secluded into her home.
William Faulkner explores Emily Grierson’s life by starting and ending with her death. Instead of telling her story chronologically he tells important tidbits in by breaking up the story into five parts, each one set at a different time in her life. The plot of “A Rose for Emily” focuses heavily on death and loss. Each of the five parts bears some mention of Emily’s loss and this constant reiteration helps the reader to feel some of Emily’s grief. First she loses her father, his death is mentioned throughout the story, then she loses the support of the town, eventually she loses her love and finally she loses her life.
2. Colonel Sartoris’ tax remittance vs. new city government official’s insistence of tax debt owed. 3. Noblesse oblige vs. Emily’s responsibility to herself Most Important Sentence When first reading William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” I got the initial impression of Emily being somewhat of a demented eccentric, but, when reflecting critically on “Poor Emily” (Faulkner 31), I found that Emily is obviously not a foolish woman; she is a woman that is struggling for her freedom to live and be contented as much as she can. It’s the mental anguish that was exacted upon her that lives within her from the moment of her father’s death until Homer Barron attempts to leave that makes her a woman of piquant intellect and mind-set.
The theme of isolation is the focal point of the story, since it is what drove her to her madness. She was born into a family, the Griersons, who were very established in the community. She was said to be “the last Grierson” in the community (Faulkner 391). The family was no longer wealthy, but continued to be held in high esteem after her father died. The only material thing her father left her was the family home.
For example, Faulkner states that, “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white … in the heavenly lightsome style of the seventies, set on which had once been our most select street” (34). The house was old and wearing down. She denied her father’s death for three days because she could not fathom that she was completely alone now. Emily was left with nothing after her father’s death because he pushed away anybody who tried to get near his daughter, only to make her an old, lonely, bitter woman. Secondly, Miss Emily suffers from person vs community conflict.
The story tells us that he was away from the accident and didn’t know it happened. He came home to find that his wife had died from her heart disease, She was so overjoyed by what had happened, I’m guessing his
At the end of the story a revelation is disclosed. Emily had poisoned her admirer Homer Barron and slept with his rotting corpse for several years. When Emily dies, the whole community comes to her old house to pay respect. They do not come from true love for her but more out of “curiosity to see the inside of her house” and “through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument”. Emily is truly a fallen monument.