In “A Rose for Emily,” Emily Grierson is a lonely spinster, living on the fringes of the small town of Jackson, whose inhabitants constantly judge her for her loneliness. As a result, she begins to become somewhat eccentric, exacting her own brand of reality in her own home. After clearly becoming infatuated with a new man in town who spends a lot of time with her, the townspeople continue to gossip and scrutinize her every action, which become increasingly strange as time passes. Finally unlocking Emily’s home after her death, the town is faced with a brutal, horrifying truth that had long been hidden from them. Death is a persistent symbol throughout the story - tracing the steps back throughout the town to determine just what led to Emily's death. In the end, we find that her death (and the death of her beau) is tied to her love for him; by forcing him to be with her and committing suicide after he dies, she gets to be with him forever.
The story is split into five sections, each developing a different time period in Emily’s life and the town. In section one, Faulkner starts us at the end of Emily’s life; we see her funeral, which “the whole town” attended (Faulkner, 1970). We are told that, unlike the expected response one would give to a dead person in your town, people attended the funeral out of curiosity, due to her being out of the public eye for about a decade. This is an early indicator of the distance that existed between the townspeople and Emily; Faulkner lets the audience know early on that Emily had no love lost for the townspeople, and that was also true for them as well.
Faulker, using this unanchored chronology, takes us through a thematically significant (if not chronologically accurate) journey through the highlights of Emily’s life. By starting the audience at the funeral, it is clear that Emily will die – also, they just may get to see how by the end of the story. Then, in 1894, the audience sees the defining moment of Emily’s life – it is the point when she believes she does not need to interact with society anymore. Emily puts her foot down and says “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me” (Faulkner, 1970). Her stubbornness (far from becoming of a lady of the time period) leads her to become isolated from the rest of Jackson, her only other significant communication with the townsfolk being the annual tax bill, which is always ignored.
In the very first section, the audience is introduced to just what kind of story is being told. Emily’s life is revealed through flashbacks, from end to beginning, and this informs the audience of the impending doom that will befall Emily. Throughout the rest of the story, the audience is left in suspense as to when it will happen, or how, or why exactly the townspeople are so curious about her. This is a hallmark of Gothic storytelling, as the audience knows something horrific is about to happen, but is not aware of exactly what it is until it is too late (Hartwell, 1987).
The beginning of section two flashes forward to near the end of the story and Emily’s life; already, the sense of suspense is built with the mention of a mysterious smell within the first sentence. There is also mention of a potential suitor mysteriously deserting her, after potentially being the sort to stick around and marry her. Already, this sets off alarm bells in the audience’s mind, as they are aware of the implication of a dead body in Emily’s house. The questions remain, however – who or what is it that is causing the smell? This is the reason why Faulkner uses this particular device of fractured chronology in this piece. The audience is made aware of the possibility of something going terribly wrong, but they are now left to fill in the blanks in the rest of the text (Harris, 2007).
The other sections move by, and Emily’s life is viewed in snippets – an appearance here, a shop visit there – but the next big clue to something dreadful happening occurs near the end of section three (Morton, 2005). In this scene, Emily asks for arsenic, despite the constant questions and requests for clarification from the druggist. Due to the secretive and shifty nature of her request, and the significance given to the lie she gives the druggist – she wants to use it ‘for rats’ – it is clear she will use it for something more sinister. Given the previous clues of Emily’s death and the smell, the audience begins to put even more pieces together, but still nothing is definitively known.
Nothing is fully discovered until the very last section, which is revealed to take place after the first (being the very last event to be found in the chronology of the story). By doing this, Faulkner debunks the theory that Emily wished to kill herself by taking the arsenic on her own, as he reveals there is more to the story after Emily’s funeral. With this, the audience’s tension is heightened, as the true secret will finally be revealed, in true Gothic horror fashion, with openings of doors and dead bodies left to decompose in locked rooms (Stone, 1960).
After Emily’s passing at the end of the story, when the time comes to open the door of the upstairs bedroom which had been sealed up (the source of the smell), the narrator suddenly says that “They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it.” This is to foreshadow or emphasize the cold horror the audience experiences when they realize that the smell from the room comes from Emily’s former lover, Homer, whom she had killed in order to keep around forever. Her severely damaged mind is revealed all too late (Scherling, 1980). Before this, the narrator had frequently referred to themselves as ‘we,’ but in this instance, the one telling the tale must shy away from the horrific things they find in that bedroom, instead using ‘they’ to remove themselves from the scenario entirely. This reaction provokes a similar one from the audience, as they have also been invested in the narrator’s point of view.
One could argue that death is merely a symbol for Emily's madness, and not of great love for Homer. Emily is frequently shown to be reclusive, and thought to be crazy by the members of the town, showing the audience the town's perspective keeping Emily at a distance so we do not know what she is thinking. However, the ultimate motives behind her decision to kill Homer and then herself still lie in affection, even if it is an affection tinted by madness. Emily finally found someone who would be social with her, and as they spent time together (voluntarily in Homer's case, which should be remembered), they began to like each other. Since the affection was at least slightly reciprocated by Homer, it stands to reason that Emily's decision to try and keep him forever did not come from her psychosis alone, but her love for him and her desire to see the relationship continue.
In conclusion, William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” tells the story of a woman's twisted love for her man, and how she wishes to extend that love to the rest of her life. Feeling abandoned and ostracized by the town, she wanted to hold onto whatever little affection she could get in her life. To that end, she kills herself and her man, a disastrous action borne of love. In this respect, she is much like the great romantic figures Romeo and Juliet, seeking to stay together until the end of their lives, even if that makes it shorter. However, the tragedy of this is that Emily forces this on Homer, in her desperation to belong. Because of this, the symbol of death becomes even more tragic and unfortunate.
Works Cited
Arensberg, Mary, and Sara Schyiter. "Hairoglyphics in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"/ Reading the Primal Trace." boundary 2 15.1 (1987): 123-134. Print.
Brooks, Cleanth. William Faulkner: toward Yoknapatawpha and beyond. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978. Print.
Curry, Renee. "Gender and authorial limitation in Faulkner's `A Rose for Emily'." Mississippi Quarterly 47.2 (1994): 391. Print.
Dilworth, Thomas. "A Romance to Kill for: Homicidal Complicity in Faulkner's 'A Rose for Emily'." Studies in Short Fiction 36.3 (1999): 251. Print.
Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 1970. Print
Harris, Paul. "In Search of Dead Time: Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"." KronoScope 7.2 (2007): 169-183. Print.
Hartwell, David G.. The Dark descent . New York, N.Y.: T. Doherty Associates, 1987. Print
Morton, Clay. "'A Rose for Emily': Oral Plot, Typographic Story." Storytelling: A Critical Journal of Popular Narrative 5.1 (2005): 1. Print.
Scherling, Jack. "EMILY GRIERSON'S OEDIPUS COMPLEX: MOTIF, MOTIVE, AND MEANING IN FAULKNER'S 'A ROSE FOR EMILY'." Studies in Short Fiction 17.4 (1980): 397. Print.
Stone, Edward. "Usher, Poquelin, and Miss Emily: the Progress of Southern Gothic." Georgia Review 14.4 (1960): 433-443. Print.
