Emily Grierson In “A Rose For Emily” Has The Most

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In “A Rose for Emily” and “The Rocking Horse Winner” Faulkner and Lawrence present the theme of love in a twisted manner. Although both of these stories are about love, they are about two very different kinds of love: Emily Grierson is in a romantic relationship with Homer Baron, while Paul’s love is maternal for his mother. Both stories do however, give a macabre view of love, as they each end with the deaths of the protagonists. Although both stories illustrate love as a source of pain and anguish, it is Emily that presents a more twisted view of love, as she is in control of the decisions that she makes in her life. 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. Paul tries to replace his father as the breadwinner of the family, as his mother indicates that his father is unlucky and this is the source of their misfortune. He rides his rocking horse with fury, a sexual symbol of his mother, to ‘find’ luck. He tells his rocking horse to ‘take him’ to luck. Paul thinks that if he can convince his mother that he is lucky he will gain her love. The main difference between these two characters is that Emily was a powerful woman that had been given a happy childhood, her father loves her and she does not want for anything, while Paul is at his mother’s mercy and is a powerless young boy desperate for his mother’s love. Unlike Paul, Emily does not feel unhappy or unloved; she is calculating and uses her power to obtain poison

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