My initial personal reaction to Faulkners' "Rose for Emily" is that emily was diconnected from the town. She was locked up more or less by her father who was overly protective and he didn't believe any of the men were quite good enough for his daughter. I agree with the towns people who thought the Griersons held themselves a little too high and mighty for what they really were. Emily was caught up in her On the other hand the town seemed to be over stepping some personal boundaries by intruding on her land when trying to mask the smell of her property and by everyone being nosy about what her house was like since she hadn't been out and no one had been into her house in many years.
Literary element/thematic analysis: Faulkner uses foreshadowing, when the towns people went to her house to offer condolensces and aid miss emily had told them that her father was not dead, she went along with this for three days. The minsters and doctors were trying to persuade her to dispose of the body, she finally broke down and her father was quickly buried. The towns people did not say she was crazy then ,since they believed she had to do that because he was the last part of a life that she used to know. There is a sense of mystery created when Emily's house is described as having an odor, it creates a situation for the reader to wonder about the possible reasons for the stench, which comes back around at the end of the story, with an answer of Homer's decomposing body. The fact that she was able to live with her fathers dead body, leads to her mindset of being able to live with Homer Baron's body for forty years.
questions/comments: Did Emily's father and his protective ways contribute to the acts that his daughter commited and the way she shut out the world in her later life?
Very well put. I felt the same way about the town being so very nosy when it wasn't there place. Emily to me was very secluded and it lead her to act very distant towards others.
ReplyDeleteYes, I do think the treatment from her father made Emily the way she was. He had sheltered her too much. She was taught that her family was more superior than everyone else so she was not able to develop normal relationships with other people. After her father died, it only got worse.
ReplyDeleteDemond Richardson
ReplyDeleteI believe the way he isolated her had a lot to do with her holding on to the bodies. However, I also believe her unusual behavior had a lot to do with how of touch she was with her surrounding environment and her own decline.
The secrecy and exclusionary lifestyle that Miss Emily's father brought her up in certainly influenced her ability to handle conflict as well as her reclusion. By demonstrating that her family was above the common people amongst whom they lived, he bred her to believe that others in her community could not be mingled with. Dating Homer may have been a type of late rebellion against her father's ways, but ultimately she couldn't live with the reality of her contradiction.
ReplyDeleteYou're response was very well put. But in my opinion, I do believe that Emily's father's treatment of her did contribute to her isolation status and the ending result of her relationship with homer. She didn't know how to effectively communicate with the outside world so she felt shehandled
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