Jack Scherting Summary

An important idiosyncrasy of Emily's that will help the reader to understand the bizarre finale of the story, is her apparent inability to cope with the death of someone she cared for. When deputies were sent to recover back taxes from Emily, she directed them to Colonel Sartoris, an ex-mayor that had told her she would never have to pay taxes, and a man that had been dead for ten years. Years before this incident, however, after her father had died, she continued to act has if he had not, and only allowed his body to be removed when threatened with legal action. Considering the fate of her lover's corpse, one suspects she would have kept her father's corpse also, had the town not known of his death.

So, once he dies she is left even more alone than before. Emily refuses to acknowledge that he is really dead. “When he dies, she refuses to acknowledge his death for three days. After the townspeople intervene and bury her father, Emily is further isolated by a mysterious illness, possibly a mental breakdown.” (Mosby).

The day after her father's death, the women of the town went to give their condolences to Miss. Emily. To their surprise, Miss. Emily was "dressed as usual" and had "no trace of grief on her face (Perrine's 285)." Emily told the women that her father was not dead. Finally after three days of trying to hold on to her father, "she broke down, and they buried her father quickly (Perrine's 285)." The town's people tired to justify Miss. Emily's actions, by saying that she had nothing left, and was clinging to the one thing that had robbed her for so long they convinced themselves that she was not crazy.

They had grown so close to each other, and when Emily finds out he is a homosexual, she feels betrayed and she kills him.

She suffers from Necrophilic, in other words she’s attracted to dead bodies. “She told them that her father was not dead. She did it for three days” (Faulkner). Her father had full potential control over her life that after his dead, the only way Emily could have control over him would be by keeping his dead body. Then came Homer, a construction worker who went around town gossiping about having sex with Emily which leads to Emily buying rat poison to kill him, “The fact that certain people in town knew that Homer was in the upstairs room argues a similar recognition of Emily’s need to cling to Homer as she had tried to her father” (Getty). Again, he lied and did not have plans on marrying her, he was known to hang out with younger guys as referring to him as a homosexual man. so to have control over him would be by killing him, but this time he didn’t keep the body for three days but for thirty years.

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).

Integrity and honor, servanthood, mentorship, professionalism, positive attitude, reinforcement and accountability, and proactive communication is what Jack E. Enter P.h. D states is the seven laws of leadership in his book, “Challenging the Law Enforcement Organization; Proactive Leadership Strategies.” Enter indicates the purpose of this book is to develop leaders whom are abnormal and different from most. This book identifies poor and successful leadership traits based on Enter’s education, his personal experiences in law enforcement, teaching, and from his personal life.

Ted Conover’s book, New Jack, is about the author's experiences as a rookie guard at Sing Sing prison, in New York, the most troubled maximum security prison. He comes to realize that being a correctional officer isn’t an easy task. This is shown from the beginning when he is required to attend a 7 week training program to become a correctional officer. He comes to realize what inmates have to endure on a daily basis. Throughout his experience into a harsh culture of prison and the exhausting and poor working conditions for officers, he begins to realize that the prison system brutalizes everyone connected to it. New Jack presents new ideas of prisons in the United States in the ways facilities, corrections officers, and inmates function with

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 was obsessed with holding on to the past and to avoid change. When her father dies she is really sad. She then meets a man named Homer Barron. She is afraid she will lose him too because he is not the kind of guy to settle down. So if she kills him she could at least still be able to see him after he is dead because she will keep his dead body in her house. By her keeping the body in the house it shows she had a hard time of letting go. Emily kills because of her extreme love.

Faulkner states that Miss Emily would tell the other people that “her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly,'' (Faulkner 804). This part of the story foreshadows another incident where Emily again refuses to let go of the deceased. Instead of Emily not being able to let go of her father, this time she couldn't let go of her close friend, Homer. The hint of Emily not being able to let go of her father in the beginning serves as an indication for the reader that Miss Emily is very isolated and will do anything to prevent that. Emily’s suspicious actions causes the reader to anticipate certain happenings and wonder what will happen next.

Her relationship with her father is a total mystery, however it’s well implied that their relationship was more than the typical normal father and daughter relationship. For this reason the community wasn’t at all shocked that Emily was single and turning thirty. In denial about her father’s death, she refused to le the townspeople remove the body for three days. Once she met Homer Barron, Emily begins an undesirable affair. Many of the town people were happy she was with someone. Though it is soon found that Homer played for the other team, Emily goes to the pharmacist for poison, it is then that the townspeople think that she will kill herself. After buying the arsenic, the next time they see her it’s stated, “she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray” (Faulkner 521). This perhaps the result of Homer Barron’s murder and the loss of her dad. At seventy four years old, Emily died in her home “She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight” (Faulkner 521). The major plot twist is that the townspeople find Homer Barron in a bedroom upstairs, lying in a lover’s embrace, with the indentation of a head upon the pillow next to him and one “long strand of iron gray hair” (Faulkner 522). Ms. Emily is “jilted” by the death of her father and Homer Barron leaving her. Since her father isolated her so well

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.

This lead Miss Emily to being separated from the rest of the town. One of the situations that lead to her isolation was that her father didn’t allow her to have a lover, “We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.” (William, Faulkner A Rose for Emily.) If the town knows this information, then the men in the area were most likely very cautious when trying to begin a relationship with Miss Emily and decided not to confront her. Eventually, she was driven into her own madness and stayed isolated in her own home until she met Homer Barron, her new lover.