Free Essay About Emily Grierson In William Faulkners Short Story A Rose For Emily

William Faulkner is acknowledged as one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers. What has appealed most to his readers is his mastery in depicting the identity and legacy lying in the North. North is seen on behalf of Faulkner as a geographical and cultural independent field which has always affected Americans greatly. North has always been regarded a place of mythical power, carrying its unique character of its people, their mentality and their difficulty in coming in terms with their true selves and / or the progress of the worldwide community, which finds itself under constant changes and progress. These traits of the Northern society are the source of inspiration to Faulkner who finds innovative ways to speak to his readers’ hearts about issues of common concern, such as death, the role of society, the freedom one carries as a member of a social group, the complexities involved in human relationships, the meaning of life. In ‘A rose for Emily’ Faulkner enters the literary society causing admiration on how the death of an old woman, aged 74, turns into a motivation to arise questions on matters of great concern. The aim of this essay is to present you with the portrait and analysis of Emily Grierson’s character, which is the main leading heroine of this short story.
Emily Grierson is a woman of a community living in a fantastic town in the North. The day she dies, they all attend her funeral in an effort to show respect to a figure which has been always regarded as an emblem of their town. In the five chapters consisting his narrative, Faulkner paints the portrait of his leading person, his heroine along with the portrait of the society within which she lived. All fractions of this painting are of equal importance and interest. The story moves between life’s light and death’s darkness. There is a constant interplay of life and death which actually turns out to empower life itself. Emily is a girl living in a closely bonded, rural and not urban community. Emily’s death is the last one out of the three physical deaths taking place in the town of the story. Emily’s death of optimism and hope has led her to being treated as an outcast. All citizens have held onto their own microcosm without trying to open their minds to the differentiation happening next door.
The day Emily Grierson dies, it is as if a breeze of air awakening the town’s people from their everyday routine blows. They all want to go and attend her funeral. Emily has always been like the dead living among them. The reason is simple. Emily is not any person. Emily is a woman who caused lots of heated debate and trouble among them. There were so many times when she was alive that her behavior had caused so many trouble and internal conflicts. ‘Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town’ (Chapter 1). Being the daughter of Mr Grieson, a citizen of great admiration and respect, she had been brought up within the borders of what was expected from her as part of her origins. She was expected according to the norm of her society and traditions to grow up a woman happily married to a man of her social status serving her duty as a traditional housewife. Instead Emily lost her father when she didn’t expect it. And she didn’t come in terms with that loss. This death which brings to the surface the weaknesses of Emily as a character, her being fragile and immature to deal with life’s changes. Ever since, Emily started turning into a grotesque figure, isolating herself from the others, adopting a rather bizarre behavior. In the following years Emily showed weakness in adjusting to her society either due to her denial to pay her tax debts or to her intense denial to share her thoughts and actions with the others. It was her choice of a newcomer, Homer Barron, to be her companion hoping to a future marriage with him that caused even greater turmoil to her social surroundings. Emily turned out not to be married. Homer disappeared and nothing was ever heard about him again. Emily stood up to her beliefs, rejecting the society in which she lived, stuck to her own way of perceiving things. Emily turned into that social monument which everybody admires due to her strength of staying the same despite the pressure she takes to change and follow the demands of her era, but at the same time despises since it provokes so much and cause trouble to the normal life of the society.
So, Emily turns into the mirror which reflects her society’s weakness. How can a society pride in its ethics, in its power of laws, in its citizens’ obedience and adjust to its rules of functioning if there are outsiders who prove the opposite? How strong is a society which cannot deal with its outsiders? Emily lived among them without letting any space for them in her life. When she dies, a number of reveals take place. Emily’s dead house, unvisited and unapproached for so many years, opens. What people see on the last floor is Homer’s dead corpse, an explanation of the terrible odor which had troubled them a lot about 30 years ago. Homer is dead and next to his head is ‘a long strand of iron gray hair’ (end of Chapter 5).
Emily is the mask behind which the real death on which Faulkner wants to talk, lies. Emily symbolizes the death of a society’s power to deal with its outsiders effectively. Emily is the symbol of the death of a preceding mentality, the one leading people to stick to their beliefs and ideas, having no ability at all to take control of their lives.