A Rose For Emily Isolation Analysis

In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Emily becomes a minor legend during her lifetime. After her death, when her secret is revealed, hers becomes a story that no one can forget. "A Rose for Emily" is the story of the old maid who fell in love with a northerner, but resisted being jilted once too often. And only after her death, "When the curious towns people were able to enter her house at last, did they discover that she had kept her dead lover in the bed where she had killed him after their last embrace." (Kazin 162) . "In her bedroom, Emily and the dead Homer have remained together as though not even death could separate them."(Kazin 162) . Even though her lover had

The summer after her father died, the town hired contractors to pave the sidewalks. The foreman, Homer Barron, and Miss. Emily became quite fond of one another. On Sunday afternoons they could bee seen driving in his buggy together. Soon the people began to whisper about Emily and Homer. Emily held her head high; she would not be seen as anything other than respectful. The town's people believed that Miss. Emily should have kinfolk come to stay with her for a while.

This strand of hair on the pillow lets us know that Emily had been sleeping with Homer's corpse as if he were still alive. She had grown so attached to him after all of those years of not being able to go out with boys.

Some of the townspeople considered this as an inappropriate match for her and said, “That even grief could not cause a real lady to forget oblesse oblige.” Emily could not stand loosing anyone else and murdered Homer. She had missed so many chances of marrying anyone because of her father, so the only resort she had left was to kill homer and hang on to him forever before he would leave her life like everyone else. Once Emily had passed away, the townspeople went inside her house and saw that Homer’s body was there in the bed. Astonishingly they saw “the second pillow (had an) indention of a head… and saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.” Faulkner had described Emily’s hair as iron-gray so it could be assumed that Emily had been lying next to homer all this time.

Miss Emily is also decaying, but it is subtle and internal--the awful smell that begins to permeate from her dwelling is a reflection of the withering woman within rotting. Perhaps most tragically, Miss Emily’s isolation is far from self-inflicted. Her blind devotion to the ones she loves; her father, her husband, her home; only serves to further condemn her actions. Her neighbors disregard toward her inabilty to let go of her father after his death, despite the delicacy of her being, caused for her madness to fester. “She told them her father was not dead.

With this discovery, Emily knew she could never have him and could not bear the thought of another man that she loved leaving her. This must have been the breaking point for her. Emily was determined not to let another man leave her for the third time. Therefore she purchased the arsenic so she could be with him forever. The last person to see Homer was a neighbor as the Negro man was admitting him in at the kitchen door at dusk one evening. Again, Emily submerged herself into the familiar calm of isolation until her death. After her funeral, the narrator (the town) paints the picture of their discovery in the room above the stairs. A room in which no one had seen in for forty years. “The man himself lay in the bed. For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him…. Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted

Among many twentieth-century writers who have attempted to write about murder and mystery, William Faulkner’s ability to create an uncomfortable mood is incomparable to any other. "When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral." In the introduction of A Rose for Emily, the pages are immediately infested with the theme of death, which brings the reader to question why this story has such a depressing tone upon separating the front cover from its pages. Making the solemn mood such an integral part of this piece not only provokes thought within the reader, but also gives a sense of security. It is clearly spelt out that the author is trying to make the audience feel a certain way. This specificity so early on in the piece makes his writing more believable and settling into the discomforting tone. A Rose for Emily is a poetic collage of psyche solutes meant to provoke life-altering observations and internal search.

To Emily, Homer is still alive. She goes out and buys gifts especially for him. When Homer dies she remains in her house and sleeps with Homer in the bed. No one sees her again. At the end, Emily dies alone in her house.

When the townspeople open the room Homer Barron was in, everything in the room is untouched. Within this bridal tomb were tarnished men's toiletries and attire, that when removed left behind an indentation amongst the dust. When the narrator describes Homer Barron he says, "What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and binding dust. " The narrator also says, "The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him." Whether he left her or not was not was not in Miss Emily's control, but in death

Despite all the rumours talk by the towns people, Miss Emily had her own plan, but as Faulkner wanted to let the readers contradict what is the use of the arsenic he didn’t stated why and how does Homer disappeared. But as a clue, Faulkner come out with the smell, however, continues to persist, rapping on the reader’s curiosity. Miss Emily emerges as a figure frozen in a short of stasis, though throughout it all, Faulkner never makes her character any less complex and ambiguous.

“After Emily’s death Barron’s dead body was discovered in a locked-up room in her house” (Van Stralen). “I want some poison. Arsenic. I want arsenic” (Faulkner). The last symbolic aspect was the lime, the lime was used to cover the smell that was coming from Emily’s house.

When Miss Emily’s father died “the house was all that was left to her” because her father scared away any men that came to her house (Faulkner 2). People in the town of Jefferson tried to help Miss Emily though the tough time, but she did not want to accept the change in her life. However, when Homer Barron came into town; she tried to move on. Miss Emily did not want to be rejected by Homer, so she poisoned him. When Homer was poisoned, Miss Emily kept his body in an upstairs bedroom, and there was evidence she had laid with the

Emily lived in the past when her family was powerful because of their wealth. This power was clear when Emily bought arsenic from the druggist. She easily convinced him to sell her arsenic. He was prepared to ignore laws for Emily. This is similar to the discovery of Homer Barron's body in her bed forty years after his disappearance. She considered herself above the law even to the point of murder. Emily and her house are both decaying as they refuse to move

The townspeople felt bad for Emily and thought the reason for her craziness was because her family had a history of it. Emily also waits three days before revealing the death of her father. Emily allows the dead body of her father to lie in her home rotting away. Another crazy action that Emily does is when she goes to the pharmacy to purchase “rat poison”. When Emily goes to buy the arsenic she doesn’t tell the druggist what exactly she is going to use it for, but stares him down making him feel uncomfortable. “Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up” (213). One of the most extreme actions Emily performs is being responsible for Homer Barron’s death. But, after fully reading the story the reader understands that Emily not only kills Homer but sleeps with his corpse. “What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay… Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair” (215) There the reader’s thought of Emily sleeping with the dead body and her psychotic tendencies is confirmed.

“A Rose for Emily” is a Southern Gothic short story written by William Faulkner. The main character, Miss Emily Grierson, has a story and personality that can be analyzed from many different viewpoints. Focusing more on the psychological perspective, Miss Emily is very erratic and idiosyncratic in behavior. She isolates herself in her home and locks up her house to prevent anyone from coming in. Her home hides many secrets, but the one that stands out the most is the corpse of Homer Barron, Miss Emily’s lover. For years, Miss Emily has lived and slept with the corpse, which was unknown for many years by all the townspeople. After this is discovered, Miss Emily’s mental health and stability became the main topic of interest to both the townspeople and the readers of this story.