Emily Grierson Insanity

The day after her father's death, the women of the town went to give their condolences to Miss. Emily. To their surprise, Miss. Emily was "dressed as usual" and had "no trace of grief on her face (Perrine's 285)." Emily told the women that her father was not dead. Finally after three days of trying to hold on to her father, "she broke down, and they buried her father quickly (Perrine's 285)." The town's people tired to justify Miss. Emily's actions, by saying that she had nothing left, and was clinging to the one thing that had robbed her for so long they convinced themselves that she was not crazy.

Madness and desperation can motivate some of the most extreme actions of individuals. For instance, when faced with a loneliness she was forced into by her overprotective father, Miss Emily Grierson in “A Rose for Emily” struggles to cope with a changing environment after his death. Her mental deterioration even culminates into the murder of her significant other Homer Barron to keep him from leaving her as well. In his story, William Faulkner foreshadows Miss Emily’s mental instability from the very beginning with specific hints. Some of those tactics are portrayed in the description of Miss Emily’s family history, the words and actions of the community, and her inability to distinguish between the past and the present.

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.

Once it becomes apparent that Homer is not the marrying type and that he represents everything that she is against, Emily murders him with rat poison. It is revealed that Emily kept Homer’s corpse in her bed throughout the rest of her life, when he is found in the bed by the townspeople after she dies. Homer represented the more modern and industrialized South to come and Emily murdering him

Emily comes from a family with high expectations of her a sort of “hereditary obligation” (30). Emily has been mentally manipulated by her as so indicated in the line of the story “we did not say she was crazy then we believed she had to do that we remember all the young men her father had driven away” (32). There is already proof of mental illness in the family “remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great aunt, had gone completely crazy last” (32).

William Faulkner writes “A Rose for Emily”, which is a tale about the peculiar events in a small town in Mississippi. The protagonist, Emily Grierson, is an eccentric lady that encounters tragedies throughout her life. Unexpectedly, she meets Homer Barron whom she considers the love of her life. In this tragic love story, Faulkner reveals the true identities of these individuals. The main character, Emily Grierson, in the story “A Rose for Emily”, is portrayed as a dynamic character, an anti-hero in the story, and a mysterious citizen in the small town of Jefferson.

The author, William Faulkner, has a collection of books, short stories, and poems under his name. Through his vast collection of works, Faulkner attempts to discuss and bring awareness to numerous aspects of life. More often than not, his works were created to reflect aspects of life found within the south. Family dynamics, race, gender, social class, war, incest, racism, suicide, necrophilia, and mental illness are just some of the aspects that Faulkner explored. In “A Rose for Emily” the aspects of necrophilia and mental illness along with the societal biases that were observed in a small-town setting are seen to be a part of this captivating story. These aspects ultimately intertwine with the idea of insanity that characterizes “A Rose

After living so long as a victim of loneliness perpetrated by her father, Emily decides that she will be vindicated-she will have her man. She orders a toiletry set to be engraved with Homer's initials, purchases an outfit and a nightshirt for him, and buys the arsenic that is to seal his fate. When the townspeople enter her house for the first time in forty years, they find a bridal tomb: a tarnished toiletry set, a neatly pressed suit, and a rotting Homer Baron clad in the nightshirt wearing a "profound and fleshless grin" (87).

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.

William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” In William Faulkner’s, “A Rose for Emily,” Miss Emily Grierson lives a tragic secluded life, isolate from the world, in her house. However, upon further inspection, it appears that she has a psychological disorder which affects her relationships with her family and the community preventing her from making a true, healthy connection with the outside world. Her illness is present in all aspects of communication within the community and even within herself. It is perpetuated by the refusal of the community to talk about it and the help she receives from authorities to cloak the symptoms altogether.

Emily lives in self isolation or what was perceived to be isolation. The only person Emily came in daily contact with was her servant. Isolation exacerbated the reality that Emily was truly alone. When left to themselves in isolation, many killers, often live out their world in a fantasy. Fantasy serves to relieve anxiety or fear and most people have them to one extent or another (Douglas, J.E., Burgess, and Ressler, R.K. 1995.) We may not know what really fed Emily's behavior, some theories are that she could have suffered from separation anxiety due to her father's death, others suggest that she was suffering from a form of neglect. This can be concluded by her longing for a companion.

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.

suggests that Homer Barron is a fun loving person. While, Emily comes out of the house very few times, and is never seen having fun with people. When Emily proposed Homer Barron for marriage, Homer refuses to marry Emily, as he did not wanted to overtaken by time and become dull as Emily would have wished. Thus, Emily poisons Homer Barron and killed him and kept him forever with her.

As stated before, many different factors contribute to the decline of Miss Emily’s mental health. Mr. Grierson’s death represents the loss of the life that Miss Emily is used to, which causes her to use her lover, Homer Barron, as reenactment of her past years. Regardless, Miss Emily’s gender and reputation may have caused her possible schizophrenia that the textual evidence cannot provide for a counterargument. Miss Emily simply cannot show herself as an independent person because she just can’t do so. For this reason, Miss Emily has developed symptoms of schizophrenia as a coping and defense mechanism.

Miss Emily lived her life almost throughout on display before the town of Jefferson and ultimately this resulted in her lack of socialization and human interaction. The fault in this matter lies with her father, the respected mayor of Jefferson, who protected her and kept her under thumb, driving away every suitor that came to call. People came to picture poor Miss Emily as “a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door” (Faulkner 35). In this visualization, her father clearly stood between her and the real world as a threatening and domineering figure. One might believe that such a prominent figure would interact with the public on a daily basis in a positive manner, but it appears that the Grierson status only encouraged the prying eyes of the townspeople to impede on Miss Emily’s