A Rose for Emily: A Character Analysis Essay

Nobel Laureate William Faulkner’s short story centers on a unique character – Emily Grierson mirrored in the fish -eye vision of the townsfolk of Jefferson. Miss Emily was a celebrity in her own right, with her sense of haughty lineage and her mysterious closeted life. â€Å"Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town† (Faulkner, 1970, p. 9). The author’s way of story-telling to and fro on the rails of time helps the reader glimpse Emily from diverse angles at different ages. The final exposure of the corpse in the house gives an insight into the disturbed psychological state of her mind. Physically, Emily has distinctive features – â€Å"a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; †¦ She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Faulkner, 1970, p. 10). She was a living testament to the bygone days of noble rule, and even the decayed depressing house reflected her spirit. The father’s horse-whip dominance and restrictions compelled her to slowly turn away from the world: even his demise failed to liberate her from the caged lonely existence. Later she proclaimed her sovereignty by cutting her hair short like a girl and having a secret affair with the Yankee foreman Homer Barron. There is a stream of subtle insinuations about her mental state – â€Å"crazy† (Faulkner, 1970, p. 11), â€Å"sick† (Faulkner, 1970, p. 12), impervious. When she bought the arsenic, her eyes looked like the haunted watching stare of the lighthouse –keeper. Emily was placed on a pedestal of awe and notoriety, curiosity and suspense by the townspeople. She maintained that image of cold hauteur throughout her life, dismissing the bureaucratic officials as well as gossiping public alike. New rules of post or tax did not permeate her world. â€Å"Emily is characterized by her ability to understand and utilize the power that accrues to her from the fact that men do not see her but rather their concept of her† (Staton, 1987, p. 274). Desperate for love and passion she claimed possession of this dysfunctional love forever by killing him- as the decomposed body was found, with all the material belongings, in a pose of embrace, and the startling evidence of her iron-gray hair on the adjoining pillow. Her lifetime grandeur paralleled with the gruesome evidence of her necrophilia and self-imposed solitary imprisonment makes her a unique character of Faulkner’s creative imagination. References Faulkner, William. ( 1970). A Rose for Emily. In M. Thomas Inge (Ed. ), A rose for Emily (pp. 9 -17). Columbus: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company Staton, Shirley F. (1987). Literary theories in praxis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.