Rose For Emily Isolation

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In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” the life of a peculiar spinster is discussed through the view of a narrator, who is thought to be a representative of the townspeople in the close-nit town of Jefferson, Mississippi. Faulkner explores themes such as isolation, resistance to change, and death, covering a Southern gothic style. The main character, Emily, can be seen as grotesque and mysterious due to emotional and physical isolation; it is almost impossible not to view her character in a psychological manner. Because Miss Emily and her father did not consent to a marriage for Emily to a man below their distinguished status, “none of the young men were quite good for Miss Emily as such” (Faulkner). That is, the Griersons…show more content…
The town pitied Miss Emily because she was believed to have been controlled by her father and dehumanized. When her father died, because she was left alone “and a pauper, she had become humanized” (Faulkner). This quote shows that, Miss Emily must have depended on her father, up until his death, to do everything for her. The word “humanized” suggests that she had become her own person when her father died—dating someone below her social status, paying her own taxes, and socializing—as opposed to the submissive person she was under her father. Faulkner uses the theme of resistance to change on three separate events: when Emily demanded that her father was alive days subsequent to his death, when she persisted that colonel Satoris could endorse the suspension of her taxes, and when she continued to sleep with the corpse of her sweetheart, Homer Barron, years after he was dead. Emily said, “see Colonel Satoris, I have no taxes in Jefferson” (Faulkner) when a deputation came to her house to collect taxes. This suggests that, Miss Emily continued to hold onto the remission, years after Colonel Satoris died; she refused to take on new ways, holding onto the older
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