Initial Personal Reaction
My initial reaction to Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is that
I also felt the same as the narrator of the story. I felt like saying poor Emily as she is from
this rich family with a controlling father that Emily did what she had to as a
coping mechanism for the void she had in her life. She experienced nothing and felt nothing, and
with her status did not feel any remorse for unlawful things that she has done. It was sad that the town let her get away with things
such as not paying taxes, sprinkling lime to get rid of the smell, and even
letting her buy the arsenic even though they knew better. It makes me think about how some parents
allow their children get away with things or even lie to another family member
to save face.
Literary Element/Thematic Analysis
Faulkner’s use of motifs to convey Emily’s status resulting
in her isolation, loneliness, and the town’s excuses in the story of “A Rose
for Emily” reinforces the author’s ideas about how it is the human nature to
yearn for love and affection in Emily’s unlawful way of attaining it. The
story’s first paragraph used Emily’s full name showing her importance with the entire
town attending her funeral to pay their respect to “a fallen monument”. He also described her house as being decorated
with cupolas and spires with scrolled balconies and that the house had once
been in the most “select street”. The
author described Miss Emily as tradition and a “hereditary obligation” to the
town that her family was excused from taxes.
This proved to me that the town held her family so highly that they let
them be above the law. This perception
of being above the law, and high in society allowed Miss Emily to do whatever
she pleased with no concern for the law.
The town people just reacts to Miss Emily as “poor Emily” as their excuse
to allow her to do what she wanted to do.
The town has also seen what Emily has gone through with her father oppressing
her from finding love as their family was too good for commoners or
Yankees. Miss Emily likely learned to suppress
her feelings then from any man due to her father. When her father passed she had a difficult
time coping with reality as the only thing she had left was the house and no
social skills of her own. It is tragic
that the only man that she was allowed to love was her father, and when he
passed she could not let go of him until she was forced to.
When the town saw her again, they described her looking like
an “angel” in colored church windows that depicted both tragedy and serenity
while still holding her in high standards.
The author used angel as a sign of status or above the law or godly
while saying it is tragic as Miss Emily life does seem tragic especially when
the author used “Poor Emily” throughout the story allowing the reader to feel
sorry for her. She finally met a man different
than her father when she was in her thirties.
The author described him as a “Yankee” foreman, who the town saw as the
man changing the town with construction and his image as being loud, cracking
jokes, and the little boys following him along cussing. With the town holding
on to tradition of Miss Emily’s status they did not allow the Yankee, as they
learned he was not a “marrying man” involvement with Miss Emily, go any
further. Miss Emily was then further suppressed
due to her status in her quest for yearning for love. I believe Miss Emily snapped and used what
she know, which is her own status to finally get what she wanted. What she wanted was the Yankee, even though
he was not a marrying man and not traditional, so she poisoned him to be with
her for as long as she lived without the town questioning her. With all these suppression to maintain status
quo, Miss Emily found a way to use her status as a way to get back to the town with
the town continuing to make excuses for her until she died. The town’s judge even protected Miss Emily
from the town’s complaint of the smell of her house by sprinkling limes at
night to get rid of the smell. I believe
the town knew what happened to the Yankee since at the end of the story the townspeople
knew of the room. The town had waited
until Miss Emily was in the ground before it was opened out of respect to her
status. It was there in the room they
saw what Miss Emily lived for was the affection of the man she wanted in the
status they all wanted. She had dressed
the poisoned Yankee in the nightshirt she bought, with the monogrammed toiletry
showing symbol of the status they wanted him to have as well as the suit. She got the love the only way she could
figure out how. In the end, Miss Emily
got away with murder as the town that symbolized her status always protected
and made excuses for her actions.
To conclude, I believe the author used Miss Emily’s status
to show her isolation from the real world (the town) while allowing her to be
above the law (not paying taxes and murder).
At the same time, he wanted us to feel some empathy throughout as he mentioned
“poor Emily” several times as well as allow us to see what she really yearned
for which was her way of getting her “love” that she isolated herself for.
So my question is, does society drive those people who we
regard high and mighty (i.e politicians, religious leaders, doctors, stars..) to
do unlawful things since society makes excuses?
