A Rose For Emily: A Literary Analysis

This short story was quite interesting to me. I wondered what was happening many times. One thing I learned about the human condition while reading this was that love can change you. Emily was hurt when this man didn’t want to be with her anymore, and she wasn’t sure how to cope with hurting. Emily decided to kill this man. I believe she didn’t know how else to keep him in her life. “I want some poison.” She said to the druggist. (pg. 43) This woman was extremely adamant about getting the poison. We soon learn that she killed Homer Barron, and slept with his body for over 30 years. Emily’s father left her, and she felt that she could not cope with another man leaving her. The story finally made sense to me. She was so sad for so long. I don’t

Emily’s father did not let her have a normal childhood life. By

Emily experienced many hardships in her early childhood. Emily spent a good portion of her day and even years in the presence of people who were not her mother. These people were harsh and did not appreciate Emily as her mother did (McMichael 1847). There were even times when Emily would come up with stories so that she would not have to go to nursery school where the children and students were mean (McMichael 1847). Some of these years were spent away from her mother. The clinic, that was advised for little Emily to attend, was one of these places spend away from home. The clinic where “‘They don’t like you to love anybody here’” (McMichael 1849). All of the places Emily was placed in so that her mother could make it, the sitters

Although the mother may have been trying to help Emily, the mother should have tried to take care of Emily better instead of sending her off as the only solution. One of the other effects of her mother’s unavoidable neglect is Emily’s failure to be on the same pace as her peers in class. She is at a state of illiteracy that is uncommon for her age at the time which may be a result from staying at home instead of going to class to take care of the household. In addition to the mother’s neglect, having a sister who was the ideal poster child may have caused self confidence problems as she grew older being the odd one out in the family. Emily’s mother should have made sure she was able to take care of Emily first before deciding to give birth to another child. What the mother thought would be the best option for Emily had a more clear negative effect on Emily after she grew older still not having any clear direction in her life.

In "A Rose for Emily," William Faulkner's use of setting and characterization foreshadows and builds up to the climax of the story. His use of metaphors prepares the reader for the bittersweet ending. A theme of respectability and the loss of, is threaded throughout the story. Appropriately, the story begins with death, flashes back to the past and hints towards the demise of a woman and the traditions of the past she personifies. Faulkner has carefully crafted a multi-layered masterpiece, and he uses setting, characterization, and theme to move it along.

From the beginning we hear about the mother’s self- inculpating thoughts of all she "did and did not do." To many people, the ideal mother- daughter relationship is not like the one we find in this short story. This is neither the fault of the mother or the daughter. Through her own relative thoughts, the mother illustrates the relationship that evolved with her daughter. Secondly, Emily, as a little girl wasn’t the epitome of what the ideal child should be Emily was "dark and foreign looking" when all the girls her age should be Shirley Temple look-alikes. Because she didn’t fit in she was awkward, therefore isolating herself from the rest of the kids her age. This attitude and feeling toward Emily has changed since then, and now she realizes that Emily is a talented young woman with the chance of a great future. As Emily grew older and the mother grew wiser, her attitude toward her daughter changed as well. When Emily grew out of her awkward stage, the mother realized what a beautiful and capable young women she had grown to become. The mother can clearly see this, and does not realize any problems with her daughter. When the social worker calls, she basically tells them to back off and let Emily be. Her main hope for her daughter is that she realizes what potential she has, and she won’t conform to society, but have

Emily is isolated from her mother’s touch; she does not get the reassurance she needs that her mother would return for her. Nurseries in this time were very stale and cold; her mother describes it as “…lacerations of group life.” (Olsen) The mental pain is like physical pain that she could feel throughout her little body. The separation of feelings between mother and daughter are so severe that Emily feels as though her heart is torn in two.

William Faulkner is a well-known author, whose writing belongs in the Realism era in the American Literary Canon. His writing was influence by his Southern upbringing, often setting his stories in the fictional Southern town, Yoknapatawpha County. “A Rose for Emily” was one of Faulkner’s first published pieces and displays many of the now signature characteristics of Faulkner’s writing. The short story provides commentary through the use of many symbols. In William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily”, the author uses the townspeople as a representation of societal expectations and judgments, Emily and her house as symbols for the past, and Homer’s corpse as a physical representation of the fear of loneliness.

Despite the mother's self incriminating thoughts, the dents in the mold of their mother-daughter relationship were made by the tough circumstances in their lives. From the beginning we hear the mother's self inculpating thoughts of all she "did or did not do." Emily is born into an unfortunate surrounding and, at the early age of eight

Emily is very vulnerable mostly because of her appearance. "She tormented herself enough about not looking like the others, there was enough of the unsureness, the having to be conscious of works before you speak, the constant caring-what are they thinking of me? Without having it all magnified by the merciless physical drivers" (Olson 603). Emily is a skinny, fragile, and sick child, and in the outer world, other kids without values would point her out. Emily is always insecure about what she says, or does in front of others. The insecurity of not being able to be her own person is always on her mind.

The mothers and Emily’s life is filled with hardships and regret. Emily is negatively affected by her mom because unfortunately, she was raised by a single mother who could not take care of her. Emily’s mother fought hard to provide for Emily but eventually

Emily has few friends. She reports that her closest friend is all the way in Michigan. She is in LA, that’s the same as having no friend at all because she can’t be there when she needs her. She hasn’t had a relationship with a man in 10 years and in the past has dated alcoholic men who treat her poorly. She doesn’t think that she deserves anything good because her mother was always telling her that she was not good enough to do anything. She has feelings of worthlessness. She feels that she is not able to move forward and tends to sabotage anything good that comes her way. She doesn’t have any children, but she is a substitute teacher, which might mean that she probably would have wanted to have children. Emily said that she had learned to be invisible. Emily is a lonely woman.

Emily comes from a family with high expectations of her a sort of “hereditary obligation” (30). Emily has been mentally manipulated by her as so indicated in the line of the story “we did not say she was crazy then we believed she had to do that we remember all the young men her father had driven away” (32). There is already proof of mental illness in the family “remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great aunt, had gone completely crazy last” (32).

In spite of her suffering, it is almost shocking how Emily behaves extraordinary well even in stressful situations. When she is left at nursery school, she acts unexpectedly contrary to most kids her age. “‘She did not clutch and implore “don’t go Mommy” like the other children’” (Olsen 291). She prefers to stay at home but even while trying to convince her mother to let her stay, she does it subtly, “‘Never a direct protest, never rebellion’” (Olsen 292). Does Emily behave well by choice? Her mother is worried and wonders, “What in me demanded that goodness in her? And what was the cost, the cost to her of such goodness?” (Olsen 292).

Emily Gold was the typical 17 year old teenager who has always lived with her parents, Melaine and Micheal, next door to Chris Harte, the perfect son and student athlete to James and Gus Harte. Through this close proximity they became best friends. Emily and Chris started to date, which made the parents happy, since they wanted nothing more than for the pair to end up together. Emily was a striving art student with the ability to get into elite colleges due to years of hard studying. Because of all of the people in her life that expected various sides of her, Emily had this idea that she must be the perfect girlfriend, student, and daughter. With the suffocating reality setting in, she realized that it was more than she could possibly handle, and so she resorts to killing herself. To Emily, this was the only option on how to escape from the overwhelming position she was trapped in. In her novel, The Pact, Picoult uses the theme of expectations to demonstrate the drowning, catastrophic effects it can have on one’s life by forcefully causing a person to create an image of themselves that they can never become.