Example Of Madness In A Rose For Emily Essay

Miss Emily is the victim of a terrible town, their behavior left her no choice but to live in her own time and place. She was not a welcome part of society so she chose to create her own reality. She would never be alone again with Homer Baron in her bed each night. This poor woman who had been abandoned by so many would never be abandoned by Homer. Unfortunately she is driven to insanity and probably ends up killing Homer although Faulkner does leave this issue quite open ended.
In The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman we see a view of a woman who also looses touch with her reality. In this case the narrator chooses the reality of a wallpaper world, whereas Miss Emily chooses a reality in which she is never abandoned or left alone again. Another similar story in which a woman loses her mind is Mrs Darrowby by Virginia Woolf which also contemplates isolation and ostracization by a community which eventually drives the woman in question insane. Faulkner is also extremely subtle with his arguments over insanity and the story slowly but surely builds up to a seminal conclusion
Faulkner is also a master at describing the opening passages which recount the funeral of Emily Grier. Here he creates a fictional setting in a remote Mississippi county where everything moves along at a slow pace and almost nothing happens. The old world of the South is most singularly conveyed with some explicit references to the riches and dominance of the plantation owners. Hypocrisy is also brutally evident at some points as the town’s residents seem to feign sorrow and despair at Emily’s death after actually hounding her to it themselves. Faulkner intersperses his text with references to this behavior and as such is extremely successful in doing so.
Emily Brier is perhaps a strange character yet she is also full of uninhibited independence. As she continues to wall herself up within her home, she is affected by visions and great unhappiness which only gets worse and worse. Faulkner explains in no uncertain terms that material things will not atone for being left alone and this perhaps is one of the main morals of the story. The terrible discovery of the body of Homer at the end of the story is a typical example of what this woman must have been going through as she was left holed up all by herself.
The psychological implications of ‘A Rose for Emily’ are also quite great. Faulkner is very descriptive in recounting the extreme stages of degeneration into which she descends and her resistance to anything which intrudes into her private life. Her character is similar to the typical Southern woman who moves away from anything which stands in her way and who is consistently proud of her heritage and her past. She will not yield to the town elders when they visit her and ask for taxes and she consistently refuses to mix with a society which she deems to be quite below her.
As a conclusion, I would state that ‘A Rose for Emily’ is a masterful story by Faulkner where the horrors of ostracization and exclusion lead to a most terrible yet expected end. The descriptive passages of the madness through which Emily goes through are not only touching but are also extremely powerful and gripping. Faulkner’s social study is excellent in his conveyance of the world in which Emily lived, surrounded by ignorance and stupidity if not also superstition. Her reaction to all this was to close herself further into everything and to refuse to communicate. Yet again, Faulkner shows how Southern prejudice and ignorance leads people to a most terrible end without hope. It is surely one of his best novels in true Mississippi tradition.