The passage of time brings change in the lives of people; births, marriages, deaths, and many other events in between. Change can be looked forward to or feared, and whether or not life’s changes are good or bad, most people adapt readily to turning points in their lives. However, this adaptability is an ability that Emily Grierson in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” does not possess, or if she does adapt it is in an unwholesome manner. Many literary critics agree with S. W. M. Johnson’s interpretation of the story that Emily represents “a refusal to submit to, or even to concede, the inevitability of change” (Skinner 42). While this interpretation is true, it leaves unanswered the questions of what it means to be as resistant to change as Emily is and what this means for a society in which the events of this story are possible. Faulkner’s story is not merely about a strange event in a southern town, but also about the basis of the psychological horror that surrounds change and resistance to change.
The formation of Emily’s character that leads to later events such as her refusal to pay taxes, the poisoning of Homer Barron, and the discovery of his decayed corpse in Emily’s bed by the townspeople after she dies can only be speculated upon. The narrator tells us that Emily has a great-aunt who went insane, but instead of drawing a direct line between the idea of insanity and Emily, informs readers that the townspeople pitied her (Faulkner 289). Although her failure to marry before the age of 30 was unusual, the townspeople rationalize that her domineering father and not Emily was the cause of this circumstance. They picture “Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip” (Faulkner 289). Although the death of father, in retrospect, shows the first signs of her extreme resistance to change, the townspeople choose to believe her inability to admit her father’s death came from a need to cling to the only person she had in her life, her father having driven every suitor away during his lifetime (Faulkner 290). In spite of their pity, no one finds a way to assist Emily, and her social isolation, which originated with her father, appears to be continued willingly by Emily. The townspeople are either unable or unwilling to admit anything is wrong with Emily and her situation because to do so would be to admit the horror of her abusive father, a man who at the least allowed his daughter no chance of a normal future, and their tacit acceptance of it.
Although Emily’s father is credited with beginning the problems that lead to the later horrible events, literary critic Ruth Sullivan attributes some of the culpability to the people of the town. The narrator of the story, Sullivan writes, is “not a single person because Faulkner uses a first-person plural point of view” (160). Sullivan also states “the most significant action of the narrator performs is watching” (161). No one, not even the most ardent suitor, stands up to Emily’s father. After his death, an attempt is made to stand up to Emily by requiring her to pay taxes. Although it appears that Emily is standing up to them by refusing to pay taxes, in reality she is simply maintaining the status quo and expects them to do the same. The townspeople choose to quibble with Emily over taxes rather than see the developing problems in Emily herself; perhaps they believe that inviting Emily to be a part of the town’s social circle would be as futile as their attempt to collect taxes from her. Yet, from the beginning, readers realize that the townspeople care little and understand less about Emily herself, because when everyone goes to her funeral, the men attend “through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house” (Faulkner 287). To the townspeople, Emily is merely a source of infrequent gossip, and not an entire person with needs and feelings.
The events surrounding the death of Homer Barron seem obvious, but overlay the more complex and psychologically horrific mindset that Emily has developed. The townspeople know that Homer “was not a marrying man,” yet they are happy for Emily when they believe she and Homer have married and are not surprised to later believe he has abandoned her (Faulkner 291). The Emily who meets Homer is normal in that she desires to love and be loved, but she is not normal because “in a last-ditch effort to capture life-long love, she murders her marriage-shy Yankee beau” (McDermott 455). The final scene of the story, in which the townspeople find a “long strand of iron-grey hair” on the pillow next to Homer’s corpse, allows the reader to draw the conclusion that Emily has shared this bed for many years after Homer’s death. Emily has changed because of the natural process of aging and because of the events of her life, but it is her inability to accept change that makes the events of her life so psychologically horrible. Beneath the veneer of southern gentility and propriety, Emily has steadily evolved her twisted character. The rose is an appropriate symbol for Emily because she bloomed in her youth, but like a rose, with neglect she withered away leaving nothing but thorns or painful reality. Homer’s death is not the simple tale of lost love that the townspeople counted upon; the reality of it forces to recall all the warning signs they ignored and the hidden layers of Emily’s psyche.
Although the events of the story offer horror enough, the true horror of the story not only concerns the results of resistance to change, but also humanity’s futility concerning change. This futility is the crux of the horror; Emily could do nothing about her father’s imperiousness or her lover’s lack of commitment and the townspeople could do nothing to affect Emily or to stop the developing perversity within their midst. People have a fear of helplessness or lack of control over their lives, and Emily has taken this fear to its extreme end. The horror of being alone and unloved mirrors the horror the townspeople encounter in her bedroom after Emily’s death; this horror is amplified by the feeling that nothing could have been done to derail Emily’s progress toward insanity. Faulkner’s tale of psychological horror is effective because it reminds readers that even in the midst of a normal town with typical citizens, people can be blind and helpless about the circumstances that create tragic situations such as the life of Emily and those she loved.
Works Cited
Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X Day, Robert Funk, and Linda S. Coleman. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice, 2013. 287-293. Print.
McDermott, John A. "“Do You Love Mother, Norman?”: Faulkner's “A Rose For Emily” And Metalious's Peyton Place As Sources For Robert Bloch's Psycho." Journal Of Popular Culture 40.3 (2007): 454-467. Print.
Skinner, John L. " “A Rose for Emily’: Against Interpretation." The Journal of Narrative Technique 15.1 (1985): 42-51. Print.
Sullivan, Ruth. "The Narrator in “A Rose for Emily.” " The Journal of Narrative Technique 1.3 (1971): 159-178. Print.
