Why Does Emily Grierson Commit Murder

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.

Miss Emily's relationship with her father is a key factor in the development of her isolation. As she is growing up, he will not let anybody around his daughter,

Emily's father controlled her life up until his death. Emily's father believed that, "None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such." This

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 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).

William Faulkner wrote, "A Rose for Emily." In the gothic, short story he contrasted the lives of the people of a small Southern town during the late 1800's, and he compared their ability and inability to change with the time. The old or "Antebellum South" was represented by the characters Miss Emily, Colonel Sartoris, the Board of Aldermen, and the Negro servant. The new or "Modern South" was expressed through the words of the unnamed narrator, the new Board of Aldermen, Homer Barron, and the townspeople. In the shocking story, "A Rose for Emily," Faulkner used symbolism and a unique narrative perspective to describe Miss Emily's inner struggles to accept time and change

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 severely manipulated by her father and was forbidden to see any men. Her father’s strict rules may have affected how she became who she was. She refused to believe in the death of her father and became lost in a world where she believes her father is still alive. She ends up killing Homer Baron and lets his body rot in her bed. The only evidence was one long grey hair that rested upon a pillow. This suggests that Emily had been living with her love but also with a deceased body. She refused to accept that Homer wouldn’t be in her life but also had a taste for revenge. Was it because he wasn’t going to

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 all these years of being controlled and sheltered, Emily wanted to live her life on her own terms, Rather than living by her father’s rules after he died. Emily wanted more than anything to be in control of her life, although she struggled with depression and was mentally unstable from being restricted from the outside world around her, she didn’t want to ever be alone and wanted to be in control even if it meant hurting someone she loved dearly.

The townspeople not believing she was capable of murder, just thought that she was going to commit suicide. What ended up happening was different; the readers find out that she murdered Homer and kept his corpse in a secret room in her home. The icing on the cake was when the townspeople noticed an indentation in the pillow next to his body with a long strand of gray hair in it. This means that Emily killed Baron and slept in the same bed of his dead corpse for years. This ending was the main factor that showed how deep dark and eerie this short story really

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.

Emily was an odd woman in general. Mental illness ran in her family- her great-aunt "had gone completely crazy" (II) She was in absolute denial when her father had died. This is not an unusual coping mechanism, but it took authorities a lot of effort to finally bury her father 's body. Emily, most likely, wanted to keep her father 's body in order to preserve his memory. By being buried, he was leaving her. She 'd no longer be able to see him or speak to him or touch him, so being buried was a form of abandonment. If she had his body in her possession, she could pretend as if he was still living. If no one knew Homer had died, and if she was able to get away with hiding his body in an untouched room in her home, Emily wouldn 't feel abandoned. She was also in denial of Colonel Sartoris ' death. When she was approached by members of the Board of Aldermen looking to collect taxes from her, she told them to talk to Colonel Sartoris ' about the fact that she did not owe the town any money. Sartoris had been dead for nearly a decade, but it was as if she was completely unaware. She spoke