The readers can deduce the reasons why Miss Emily is viewed as an outsider as they obtain pieces of evidence throughout the story. Miss Emily faces many psychological factors that induce her to behave peculiarly while they also affect the townspeople’s perception that she is an outcast. Miss Emily’s status as an outcast in her town is reflected in her isolation, insanity, her unconventional role as a woman, and her father’s authoritarian parenting as well as its influence on her characteristics. First of all, Miss Emily’s complete isolation from the society contributes to the townspeople’s perspective that she is an outsider. Miss Emily’s solitude is the result of lack of socialization and the death of her father.
Emily is the protagonist of the literary because the whole story revolves around her. The towns people are considered the antagonist which means that they were opposed to or struggled against Emily. Like the time when she was around town with Homer Barron and then some of the ladies of the town thought that is was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people. The ladies of the town gossiped and speculated upon Ms. Grierson’s actions. Emily also suffered from a mental illness that would confuse her about date and time.
Judge Stevens says, “…will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?” This is a disgrace among the social elite; even still, she maintains the respect from judge and others. In a few instances, society demotes Miss Emily, for example, calling her a ‘fallen monument’. The lack in up keep of her home and its surroundings, and her seemingly
From the syntax and listing of questions in this quote we can sense the feeling of confusion and displacement, which is the result of the society’s isolation. Furthermore, her tone in this quote shows desperation which suggests her absence of acceptance to the society thus her desire to belong somewhere. The lack of acceptance to either community is mentioned again by Christophine when she tells Rochester that Antoinette “is not beke like you, but she is beke, and not like us either” (page 140).
The town played a definite part in Miss Emily’s mental delusion. There were numerous complaints of a foul stench coming from her property and yet no one addressed it to her directly. A younger member of the Board of Aldermen suggested that Miss Emily be told to clean up her property. But due to the old southern ideals of honor, duty and loyalty the older, the more traditional members could not possibly confront her about this matter as ‘Dammit sir”, Judge Stevens said,” will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?”(93) So in the midnight hour they chose to slunk about the house and apply lime to the infected areas. Lime is a white powder that is good at covering the smell and aiding in the process of decomposition.
She sacrifices love, intimacy and companionship. Not only was Hester chastised for her sin, but for her loss of marriage. In Puritan society, a woman, who remained single, attracted social disapproval and pity, as seen by Hester Prynne. Dimmesdale has no compassion for Hester. While Hester was receiving public ignominy,
Hester, being an outcast of society, experiences the most evident and apparent form of isolation and alienation. As a symbol of sin, Hester is viewed by the strict Puritanical town as an outsider, a presence of evil, and, ultimately, one who is detested by God. The town's harsh condemnation of Hester is revealed through a local woman's comment,
When Miss Emily is required to pay the taxes like others by new generation, she acts stubbornly and refuses to follow the proposal because she thinks that it is irrational to ask an old Southern woman to fulfill this task; her reaction seems to reflect her attitude that cling to the past; she believes her father’s dedication to the town is still valid for the tax exemption and “see Colonel Sartoris” is her only reply to the young men even though that the mayor has passed away at least ten years ago. Another component that emphasizes Miss Emily’s mysterious life and hidden truth is the physical appearance of her and the house. They all appear to be dark and uninhabited; since the whole town have limited access to her own privacy and the author does not explicitly state any thing about her inner life, readers will be allowed to have their own guesses and suspense until the end. The second section seems to associate with the third one where the author takes all readers back to the past; Miss Emily’s father’s death and the relationship between her and Homer Barron dramatically affect on her behaviors and bizarre events around her house. The
Realist novels tend to portray their protagonists as subject to massive social forces. Crane did not want to present the story of individuality, but the story of many others. Even though the title would suggest that the book is about a girl named Maggie, “a girl of the street” shows clearly that the story of Maggie itself is not important; she is just a sad tale out of many others. Hypocrisy is one of the themes present in the book. The Johnsons members struggle to justify their immoral actions.
Furthermore, orphans were also often treated with disdain and distrust, due to their reputation as “criminally prone” individuals, and were frequent targets of classic “Victorian contradictions”, that characterized the social conventions of Victorian society. Bessie repeatedly refers to Jane as ‘poor orphan child’ in her hymn early on at Gateshead. The development of Jane’s character is central to the novel. She learns to control her passions, as her integrity is put to the test when she faces so much injustice: ‘why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, forever condemned?’. The bildungs roman of the protagonist, contrasts the attitudes of the mature Jane to her younger self initially shouting: ‘unjust, unjust’, nonetheless coming of age made her reactions and opinions more subtle, ‘what consternation of a soul was mine that dreary afternoon’.