Emily 's Motives Murdering Homer : Mental Illness And Pride

"A Rose for Emily" is a fictional short story written by 1949 Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner. Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is about an aristocratic woman who lived a very secretive and unusual life. Miss Emily had always been very sheltered by her father. He was the only man in her life and after his death, her behavior became even more unnatural. However her father's death cannot be seen as the only cause of Miss Emily's insanity. Miss Emily's behavior was also influenced by her own expectations of herself, the townspeople's lack of authority over her, and her neighbor's infatuation with her.

In “A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner uses imagery and symbolism to both illustrate and strengthen the most prevalent theme; Emily’s resistance to change. William Faulkner seems to reveal this theme through multiple descriptions of Miss Grierson’s actions, appearance, and her home. Throughout the short story it is obvious that Emily has a hard time letting go of her past, she seems to be holding onto every bit of her past. Readers see this shown in several ways, some more obvious than others.

In light of Homers feelings toward marriage Emily had been seen in town at the jewelers purchasing a men’s toilet set in silver with the letters H.B. on each

Perhaps Miss Emily had wished it that way. Faulkner tells of her two cousins, who come at her death notice at once, the same cousins who visited when she was courting Homer Barron. It was the cousins who had been there when she was ordering men’s things, giving the town belief that Miss Emily and Homer had wed. That she had changed the proclaimed bachelor’s opinion on nuptials.

A Rose for Emily was Faulkner 's first short story to be published in a national magazine. It was then published in a collection entitled These 13 in 1931 and went on to become one of the most collected American short stories. This short story is a Gothic horror and a tragedy. It is about a lonely Southern woman who has become mental ill after having an unfortunate childhood and being isolated from reality. We can see in the quote from William Faulkner about how “you can be more careless, you can put more trash in [a novel] and be excused for it. In a short story that 's next to the poem, almost every word has to be almost exactly right.” that Faulkner had mixed feelings about the short story as the best form for his narrative. A Rose for Emily has a complex plot and good pacing. Faulkner only gives information needed to foreshadow the murder at the ending or to allow the audience into Miss Emily’s life, so that we could further understand her.

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.

Homer entered her life by courting her publicly; by not wanting to marry her, he would have robbed her of her dignity and high-standing in the community. The ladies of the town felt that Miss Emily was not setting a good example for the "younger people" and their affair was becoming a "disgrace to the town" (75). The traditions, customs, and prejudices of the South doomed this affair from the beginning. Emily could not let Homer live, but she could not live without him. He was her only love. When she poisoned him with arsenic, she believed he would be hers forever.

Miss Emily was a dynamic character because she changed and became withdrawn from the people in her community over the course of the story. In the exposition, she is a prominent and active figure in her community. Her character changed as she encountered the tragedy of her father’s death. However, she still was spotted occasionally by the townspeople. Faulkner shows this by declaring, “She carried her head high enough- even when we believed that she was fallen. It was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson; as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness” (Faulkner 36-37). After Homer’s disappearance, Miss Emily became a true introvert. The author supports this idea when he states, “After her father’s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all” (Faulkner 34). The townspeople noticed changes

William Faulkner’s short story, A Rose for Emily, is a dark tale of a young girl damaged by her father that ended up leaving her with abandonment issues. Placed in the south in the 1930’s, the traditional old south was beginning to go under transition. It went from being traditionally based on agriculture and slavery to gradually moving into industrial and abolition. Most families went smoothly into the transition and others, like the Griersons, did not. Keeping with southern tradition, the Griersons thought of themselves as much higher class then the rest of their community. Emily’s father found no male suitable for his daughter and kept her single into her thirties. After her fathers death Miss Emily was swept off of

In her mind she is wanting to find someone who she could spend the rest of her life with but Homer is just wanting a fling and not a commitment. This is something that the citizens of Jefferson will worry about, as they feel that they must look after Emily since her father passing. The townspeople are like her parents and feel like it is in their best interest to look after her. This could make the reader show sympathy for Emily, rather than disliking her.

After living so long as a victim of loneliness perpetrated by her father, Emily decides that she will be vindicated-she will have her man. She orders a toiletry set to be engraved with Homer's initials, purchases an outfit and a nightshirt for him, and buys the arsenic that is to seal his fate. When the townspeople enter her house for the first time in forty years, they find a bridal tomb: a tarnished toiletry set, a neatly pressed suit, and a rotting Homer Baron clad in the nightshirt wearing a "profound and fleshless grin" (87).

Women are all around treated differently than men, and especially in this time period. Emily was an older woman that had never been without a dominant, male figure in her life. Her father and the ex love of her life had always been there for her. This is when Homer Barron came into her life and she realized that she never wanted to lose him. Even though Emily was eventually with Homer, that did not mean she was lower in the social class because she was with a laborman.

Emily is a character surrounded by mystery, leaving a mark on the influence of others, causing them to create their own scenarios about her life. It happened when she met Homer, when everyone hoped she will marry him, or when she bought poison and everyone thought she would poison herself. Her high wealthy status and respect were emphasized when she kicked out the people who

It is believed that she would want to keep Homer Barron for herself, like a prize or trophy, and even though her father believed that no one would ever be good enough for her, Homer could never be hers because of his interests in young men. So, Emily would, devise a plan to murder Homer, she feared that should would be left alone again and allowing the townspeople to believe the two are married. The acts committed by Emily are comparable to those of Jeffery Dahmer in that he kept his victims as trophies. According to Encyclopedia

She knew Homer was homosexual and still flaunted him throughout town like an accessory in trying to convince both herself and the townspeople she could move on from her father’s death. However, her relationship may have got into deep with Homer and she had to kill him to make sure he didn’t leave her side as her father did. After Emily kills Homer, “a window that has been dark was lightened and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her” (p.395). This image shows Emily has now become her father in a way and took dominance in her life by murdering someone else, which causes an internal self satisfaction. She keeps the corpse of Homer almost as the resemblance of a trophy for her work. Emily was wealthy woman who appeared to have it all however, she never accomplished close to anything in her life except for taking the life of Homer. The lost of her father signified the lost of herself, in an attempt to find herself emerged a dark character who became mentally and physically consumed by her pain that she was left to fight alone.