“A Rose for Emily” is a 1930 short story by American author William Faulkner. The story centers on the female protagonist character called Emily Grierson. Emily’s character is the subject of this analysis.
Emily Grierson is at the center of the story. She is a loner who lives a very solitary life. Her life moves from being a vibrant and young girl in her earlier years to a secretive and religious old woman who spends most of her time at a monastery. The death of her father leaves her devastated and many people in her hometown pity her because she faces a life of imminent loneliness because her father had refused numerous potential suitors. She is compelled to live with a newcomer called Homer Barron whose promise of marriage to Emily is not forthcoming. She grows old and eventually does a crude act of poisoning Barron and then hiding his corpse in their house.
According to Fetterley, Emily had a domineering character in her Jefferson town. Fetterley notes that when Miss Emily died, “the whole town went for her funeral” (Fetterley 531). In her lifetime, Emily was town property and "the subject of shared speculation" while in death she became the "subject of legend" (Fetterley, 531). In her dominance of the town, she becomes influential and the one who shapes the town's history owing to a robust and expressive personality and character. Although she locks herself in her house and no one dares go there, this introversion only serves to heighten the people's obsession with her, and she ends up becoming some cultural artifact for the town.
Emily is also depicted as a stubborn woman who could force her way with ordinary folks and the authorities. She refuses to obey the law as evidenced by the instance when she refused to pay her taxes and also when she refused to explain the purpose of buying poison (Fetterley 534). In another instance, she refuses to have a certain number fixed In essence the author shows that Emily’s stubborn character was warranted because it helped her fight against the violence that society meted out to women of status. Her stubbornness helped her rise from a victim to a figure who inspired awe and mystery among the menfolk who led a highly patriarchal society. Indeed Emily's act of murdering Homer Barron may have come across as cruel and inhumane, but it was an emphatic way of stating that indeed women led by Emily had been excessively dominated by men, and they had to vent their anger and frustrations.
Fetterley also notes that to a significant extent, Emily was gullible and open to domination by men and society. She agreed to date and live with Homer Barron although Barron did not have any solid plans of marrying her (Fetterley 535). As such, the people viewed her as naïve and gullible. She seemed to be playing by the dictates of the society that women ought to get married. The people in her town viewed her as being so naïve that when she bought the poison, they concluded that she was going to kill herself. She had lived a life that presented her as insatiable and uncontended; one willing to try out anything that would bring her some happiness.
Miss Emily Grierson is the central figure in William Faulkner's novel "A Rose for Emily". She lives a solitary life and becomes some cultural artifact in Jefferson town due to her strong introversion and refusal to follow the dictates of her patriarchal society.
Works Cited
Fetterley, Judith. Character Analysis on William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" in Kelley J. Mays. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Eleventh edition. 013. Print
