Emily Grew Up Too Fast

The narrator seems unable to establish direct contact with Emily, either in the recovery center or their home life. The narrator notes how Emily grew slowly more distant and emotionally unresponsive. Emily returned home frail, distant, and rigid, with little appetite. Each time Emily returned, she was forced to reintegrate into the changing fabric of the household. Clearly, Emily and the narrator have been absent from each other’s lives during significant portions of Emily’s development. After so much absence, the narrator intensifies her attempts to show Emily affection, but these attempts are rebuffed, coming too late to prevent Emily’s withdrawal from her family and the world. Although Emily is now at home with the narrator, the sense of absence continues even in the present moment of the story. Emily, the narrator’s central

Emily's father suppressed all of her inner desires. He kept her down to the point that she was not allowed to grow and change with the things around her. When “garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated…only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps” (Rose 217). Even when he died, she was still unable to get accustom to the changes around her. The traditions that her and her father continued to participate in even when others stopped, were also a way that her father kept her under his thumb. The people of the town helped in

     Emily’s mother felt like she was forced to neglect Emily. Her excuse was that the time was hard, it was the age “of depression, of war, of fear” (Olsen 262). Although things were not under Emily’s mother’s control, she takes responsibility anyway. In society, parents are thought to provide physical and emotional support so that their children can advance through life with prosperity. This paper is the property of Virtual Essays .com Copyright ©

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.

Emily’s father considered themselves superior than others in town. . He believed none of the young boys were suitable for Emily, and always chased them away. Her

"You think because I am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key? She has lived for nineteen years. Over and over, we are told of the limitations on choice--"it was the only way"; "They persuaded me" and verbs of necessity recur for descriptions of both the mother's and Emily's behavior. " In such statements as "my wisdom ! came too late," the story verges on becoming an analysis of parental guilt. With the narrator, we construct an image of the mother's own development: her difficulties as a young mother alone with her daughter and barely surviving during the early years of the depression; her painful months of enforced separation from her daughter; her gradual and partial relaxation in response to a new husband and a new family as more children follow; her increasingly complex anxieties about her first child; and finally her sense of family balance which surrounds but does not quite include the early memories of herself and Emily in the grips of survival needs. In doing so she has neither trivialized nor romanticized the experience of motherhood; she has indicated the wealth of experience yet to be explored in the story’s possibilities of experiences, like motherhood, which have rarely been granted serious literary consideration. Rather she is searching for

The story is based on a child named Emily that has a physical disability. Emily lived in a family of five children. "She always had a reason why we should stay home" (Olsen 601). Emily is lonely. When she was a toddler, she was left in a day care so Emily's mom could bring income to the house. Emily is a child that, as many others, grew up mostly on day care. Emily was

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

Emily is angry and resentful. She is angry at her mother and blames her for her life and the way she has turned out. Her mother has always put her down and constantly tell her that she was

Likewise, due to Emily only having interactions with only her father, I feel that this may have affected her mentally. Emily was not able to accept changes accordingly in her life. Emily was so stuck in her father ways that she didn’t want to change anything from their lifestyle after his death. She wanted to keep everything the way it was, which was comfortable for her. Like the narrator tells us, she didn’t want to use the city new mailing system and wanted to stick with the mailing system she was accustom to , “When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them” (Faulkner, 1931, 86-87). Also, evidence that Emily couldn’t adapt to change was introduced when she met a man named Homer to take the vacant place of her loneliness. Homer was a relief for Emily; she would not have to be alone any longer. Although Homer provided Emily with someone to be with, everyone knew that their relationship wasn’t going to last. It was known that Homer liked men, “Homer himself had remarked – he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks’ Club – that he was not a marrying man” (Faulkner, 1931,

This reality sends panic and fear through her because now she has nowhere to turn and no one to tell her what to do, no one to command her life. Not only is she stricken with the loss of her father but now she is cut off to the outside world, because her only link has passed on. Emily immediately goes into a state of denial; to her, her father could not be dead, he was all that she had and she would not let him go.

Emily’s upbringing is plagued with difficulties. She is the first-born of a young mother and the eldest of five brothers and sisters. As a baby, she is

Emily is a very dependant woman who can’t take care of herself. She is so used to having her father around and to tend to her. At age thirty Emily is

Poverty and loneliness play a role in the life of the narrator and as a result, she ponders about it and how it has affected her and her daughter. “1 was nineteen. It was the pre-relief, pre-WPA world of the depression,” (293). She was struggling financially, and because of the Great Depression, she was struggling to find a job, especially as a woman. And on top of that, she has a child she hardly has time to take care of because of her quest for a job and money to support herself and her daughter. Not only is she financially struggling, “for I worked or looked for work and for Emily's father, who "could no longer endure" (he wrote in his good-bye note) "sharing want with us."”, her husband abandoned her because of her financial situation (292). What else is more tormenting than thinking about how much of a financial hell hole one is in and that the only partner they can depend on has given up all hope?

She was a single mother during Emily's initial years. Thus, instead of being able to spend time and play with her 8 month old daughter, the narrator had to go out to look for a job as well as Emily's missing father (199). She defied the image of a typical housewife. Instead of staying home to cook, clean, and take care of her children, the narrator had to go out and get a job.