Analysis Of The Wake Of Emily Grierson 's Evaluation

Culture is also important to the setting in the story being told. Miss Emily was a Grierson. The high and might Grierson’s as they were known in Jefferson. Faulkner talks about how “Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of the august names where they lay in a cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of the union and confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.” By describing this culture setting Faulkner is setting the tone for what kind of character Emily is, and what kind of family she had. The Grierson’s were a powerful family in Jefferson, royalty if you will, and Emily was the last of this great family.

Emily was kept confined from all that surrounded her. Her father had given the town folks a large amount of money which caused Emily and her father to feel superior to others. “Grierson’s held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner). Emily’s attitude had developed as a stuck-up and stubborn girl and her father was to blame for this attitude. Emily was a normal

My ultimate take is that Faulkner portrayed her to have a dark soul. Emily lived in disgust for someone who held themselves to such a higher standard than most people. He portrayed this not only by her actions but also on the description of her home inside and out. The people in the town felt sorry for her quite possibly because she was alone, perhaps this is why they put up with her in the manner they

There were many things that segregated herself from the community, but something that made her really stick out was that It was extremely rare for a woman to be unmarried, and without children at her age. This lead to her neighbors engaging in gossip, and her persona was questioned even more. Miss Emily was highly stubborn, and she always did exactly what she pleased, and she didn’t care to think of what the others thought about her. Her unusual behaviors ultimately lead her into confinement. All of her unusual behaviors that her identity portrayed directly stems from how she was raised.

She wasn’t allowed to go on dates when she was of age to do so because her father wouldn’t allow it. Emily’s father wouldn’t allow her to have a boyfriend because he was afraid of being along and wanted to control what she did and never let her have a life of her own. Mr. Grierson didn’t want Emily to start courting because he was afraid she’d get married, he wanted to keep her under his control as long as he could. If a boy developed an interest in Emily he would always run them off when they would come knocking on the front door. Mr. Grierson knew if his daughter got married he’d be alone forever in that house, that’s why he sheltered her for all those years and didn’t want her to have a boyfriend, he didn’t realize that he was only hurting his daughter in the long

Through the townspeople, it is revealed that Emily’s father, Mr. Grierson, controls every aspect of her life as a young woman. He guards Emily like a dog from suitors, cooping her up at home as a way to preserve her from the outside world. Mr. Grierson is Emily’s only close point of contact in her early life, and it is his possessive behaviour and refusal to let her interact with others that serves as the root of Emily’s social maladjustment. The townspeople recognize the oddness of this relationship, thinking “of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background… her [father’s] back to her and clutching a horse whip” (Discovering Literature, p.143). While Emily is seen as small and helpless, her

By Mr. Grierson rejecting all possible suitors and convincing Emily that there is no man that is good enough for her, he insures himself that Emily will always be under his rule. In William Faulkner’s interview he says that Mr. Griersons was “a selfish man who didn’t want her to leave home because he wanted a housekeeper.” This led Emily to be “repressed” as referring to emotions and also her sexual maturity. He says “you can mash it down but it comes up somewhere else and very likely in a tragic form” which in the end it was tragic. The townspeople thought of Emily and her father as a "tableau ; "Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door.”

Miss Emily is a testament to the Civil War, having been born before or during the War. She bridges the years before the war and the turn of the century, symbolizing the values of the Old South and its resistance to change during the decades following the war. The Griersons had been an important family

Mr. Grierson was the only one in Emily's life and the relationship between them was extreme. Emily was denied the privileged of growing up in a way that is considered to be normal, all because of some idiosyncrasy ideas of her father who was, a proud old southern gentleman. Emily's father is a very self-absorbed individual who did not want to share Emily with any male friends. His fear was if she met someone and fell in love they would get married, she would leave home and then he would be left without a housekeeper. This man exhibited some psychological sociopathic behavior which altered his daughters view's on life. Throughout her life she met several young men and not one met her father's approval. Emily grew up in Jefferson in the southern part of the United States which was

Emily is very far removed from reality and because of this upsetting fact she leads a very long, lonely life. The townspeople and her own home all help in her lasting isolation, and how removed she is from society. As a society we need to refrain from out casting others and learn to help people when they are down. If we continue to just observe and pretend to care, then more young men and women could end up like Emily; even if most cases are not as

While other women in the town were getting married, Mr. Grierson was too busy chasing off any man who tried to get close with his daughter. These actions would later cause mental psyche because he denied the opportunity for his daughter to fall in love. As Emily got older, she began to realize that her chance of a normal life was fleeing away; she began to question herself. In the back of her mind, she wondered if she was good enough for anyone or her father just repeated it so many times; she began to think it was true. Emily’s superior complex kept her from seeing that her father was depriving her of a normal life that any woman would want for herself.

Looking at this story on a base level you can determine that Emily Grierson is a woman who needs to have control on her own life at all costs. She shuts out the entire town she lives in, as well as anybody who might have an influence on her, and even goes so far as to kill Homer Barron when he refuses to marry her, in order to have the ultimate control over her relationship.The average reader would respond to what Emily did with a bit of disgust. Considering her actions as vulgar like many of the townspeople from the story likely thought. However, there are many of ways to look at this story. A psychoanalytical reader might feel sympathy for Emily as they would determine her actions were a result neurosis and depression brought on by the rough childhood inflicted upon her by her father. A Feminist critic would look at it entirely differently though. Judith Fetterly states that the reason for her actions is that the patriarchal she lived installed the notion “that men and women are made for each other”. Yet in a patriarchal society at the same time there is a “massive differentiation of everything according to sex, one sees that in reality a sexist culture is one in which men and women are not simply incompatible but murderously so…. Emily murders Homer Barron because she must get a man at any cost” (The Resisting Reader: A feminist Approach to American Fiction,

The story of Miss Emily is unquestionably peculiar, enthralling and cryptic enough so as to fully engage the attention of the reader. She is a southern gothic and grotesque character whose psychotic or neurotic behavior in the relationships she has with her lover, her father as well as her servant may be representative of many interpretations provided by Freud. For instance, the affair she has with Homer Barron may exhibit her belated rebellion as a middle-aged woman against the troublesome expectations of the town as well as her repressive father.

Emily behaves the way she does for numerous reasons. She is born into an aristocratic family. Emily is brought up as a Southern belle by her father and is placed on a pedestal by the townspeople. The Grierson’s are known in town for being extremely wealthy and having the nicest house in Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County. Due to the fact that her father, Mr. Grierson, keeps her isolated and socially restricted as a child, she behaves abnormally. Emily feels as if she is pressured to live up to her father’s expectations. Because Emily is kept away from everything, she is not yet exposed to the real world.

In the eyes of the folks who lived in Jefferson, Mississippi, Miss Emily Grierson was a very eccentric woman. She kept to herself, only employed one servant in her house, and was a shut in for the last thirty years of her life. Even before she became a recluse, the townspeople found her odd because of how she acted towards them. Emily was considered eccentric because she did things no normal woman of her station would do, and yet she still tries to hang on to her traditional ways in fear of change. Renee Curry, author of “Gender and authorial limitation in Faulkner’s ‘A Rose for Emily,’” suggests that “Faulkner designs this narrative position as a reflection of his own stance toward patriarchal and societal structures and