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Rose For Emily Sociopath

Decent Essays

Do you have what it takes to kill the man you once loved? In the story “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner, Miss Emily shows signs of having a mental illness. Emily withdraws herself from society and becomes trapped in a world of delusions. By examining Miss Emily’s behavior and her social relationships, she can easily be diagnosed with being a sociopath. In a world full of norms, sociopaths roam. A sociopath is someone who has a personality disorder, which cannot emotionally condition social experiences (Million & Grossman 1). Sociopaths often show many signs of being different than the rest of society. Dr. Lykken wrote an article about sociopaths and states that often times a person will lack empathy, will have trouble living with …show more content…

According to Characteristic of a Sociopath written by Stanley Loewen he states a person lacking empathy is unable to feel sympathy for others or understand the emotional consequences of their actions (Loewen 1). We learn that Miss Emily also shows a lack of empty when it comes to “the death of her father” on page 3 (A Rose for Emily 3). When her father died people would come over to meet with Miss Emily and give her their “condolences (A Rose for Emily 3)”, but instead of being accepting and welcoming she insisted he was not dead (A Rose for Emily 3). According to the article written by Stanley Loewen, people who are sociopaths cannot make the connection between reality and what goes on in their minds (Loewen 2). Miss Emily proves that statement to be true when she shows no form of grief after the “death of her father (A Rose for Emily 3)”. Miss Emily is also “dressed as usual (A Rose for Emily 3)” when people show up (A Rose for Emily 3), this is also an example of how she is unable to any type of emotion. If she was in fact not suffering from this disease she would have been dressed in all black and mourning the “death of her father (A Rose for Emily 3). Although denial is in fact part of the grieving process Miss Emily shows no sign of “grief (A Rose for Emily 3)”. This shows that Miss Emily is not just grieving she is in fact suffering from a mental …show more content…

Lykken and Stanley Loewen, sociopath has the power of manipulation down to a science and can get almost anyone to believe their story (Lykken 2 & Loewen 3). Miss Emily uses her manipulation skills to buy “arsenic (A Rose for Emily 3)”, to “kill rats (A Rose for Emily 3)”. Miss Emily was able to manipulate the drug dealer to sell her “poison (A Rose for Emily 3), even though she was well aware of why she truly needed it. Although there is no evidence stating that Miss Emily actually “killed” the man that she loved the body was found “decaying (A Rose for Emily 5)”, in Miss Emily’s home. The fact that Miss Emily reached out to a drug dealer (A Rose for Emily 3), and purchased “arsenic (A Rose for Emily 3), was an example of “impulsive behavior (Lykken 1), which is another symptom of being a sociopath. One may argue that no evidence was found connecting Miss Emily to the death of the man she loved, which is accurate Miss Emily however “sleeps in the same bed (A Rose for Emily 5), as Homer the man that she loves. According to Dr. Lykken Miss Emily would in fact be diagnosed as sociopath due to the fact that she was able to show no empathy, or remorse while lying next to the man she loved and watching him slowly decay (A Rose for Emily 5). Miss Emily not only bought poison to kill a man but she continued to live her life as if nothing ever happened (A Rose for Emily 5). Due to that exact factor Miss Emily lives her life style as a women who suffers from

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