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"A ROSE FOR EMILY."   Term Paper ID:15327 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analyzes short story, focusing on the events in the upstairs room. Salient plot points, critical views, symbolism, sexuality, family relations.... More...

11 Pages / 2475 Words 10 sources, 29 Citations, MLA Format $44.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Analyzes short story, focusing on the events in the upstairs room. Salient plot points, critical views, symbolism, sexuality, family relations. Paper Introduction: The purpose of this research is to investigate the short a story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, with a view toward clarifying a single, important issue of plot: what really went on in the upstairs room. The plan of the research will be to set forth the salient points of the story, and then to discuss the opinions of various scholars regarding the plot at issue. “A Rose for Emily” was Faulkner’s first published short story, appearing in 1930, four years after his first novel, Soldier's Pay (Brooks, First Encounters 5). The tale is simple and straightforward, apparently told through the eyes of a minor civil servant in Jefferson, Mississippi who is explaining what people in town had gossiped about and what he himself witnessed, with regard to Miss Emily Grierson’s life and death. Spinster member of one of the first families of the town, Miss Emily for a brief Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. The tale is simpleand straightforward, apparently told through the eyes of a minorcivil servant in Jefferson, Mississippi who is explaining whatpeople in town had gossiped about and what he himself witnessed,with regard to Miss Emily Grierson's life and death. Inevitably, Miss Emily's putative association of her past(i.e. In any case, the contrast betweenHomer Barron and Miss Emily's father may be taken as a Freudian contrastbetween the acceptable and unacceptable lover. Vickery does not appear to take the Freudian qualities ofthe story very seriously but prefers to focus strictly on thefact that Miss Emily "claims" Homer Barron. Elsewhere, he notes that she "isthe true aristocrat: let others strive to keep up with the Joneses . Like the townsfolk of Jefferson, the reader may conjecture thedetails of events in the room. She demands that the situation be settled on her own terms (Brooks, First Encounters 13; emphasis added). The disappointment at Homer's poor comparison with her father, MissEmily could perhaps have accepted, had he not also actively disappointedher in love by deserting her: "Homer himself had remarked . Over the years, Miss Emilygradually secluded herself from society. The plan of the research will be to set forth the salientpoints of the story, and then to discuss the opinions of various scholarsregarding the plot at issue. Gathered by Alistair Cooke. Another view suggests itself if one combines Brook's observation withFreudian implications. It may be accidental, of course,that Homer Barron's last name is an ironic homonym for courtly nobility.The key point is that when this ideal is subverted, obsession and pathologytake on new emotional significance for those affected. The narrator describes him as her "sweetheart"(Faulkner 26), not a lover, which can be taken as a nod to small-townSouthern delicacy but which also tacitly suggests the comparison betweenMiss Emily's father and the Yankee. In the second instance, the window symbolizes the impregnableshield--physical and spiritual--between Miss Emily and the hoi polloi[2].Hence it is ultimately to Miss Emily's intransigence that the events in theupstairs bedroom can be attributed. The continuing impulse against life and love would thus have developeda life and a strength of its own and controlled Miss Emily, hence requiredher extreme self-control, forever. . It is Miss Emily's misfortune never to find the equal of her father'spersonality while he was alive, and only crude imitations after his death.The self-aware, perhaps quietly self dramatizing life of a high and mightyGrierson decays over a period of years, a decay that is eventually givenconcrete expression in the upstairs room. .she is the 'Jones' with whom others will do well to keep up" (Brooks, FirstEncounters 13). that he wasnot a marrying man" (Faulkner 29). Works CitedBackman, Melvin. . The grotesque richness of suggestion appears to givethe lie to Trilling's complaint, as reported by Hoffman and Vickery, thatthe story is "pure event without implication" (Hoffman and Vickery 19). This self-conscious impulse thusacquires heroic dimension and Brooks says that her madness has "an elementof the heroic about it too" (First Encounters 13). And it will submitfor a protracted period after the lover has deserted Miss Emily and she hasbegun to age visibly. Faulkner, The Major Years: A Critical Study. Thus Brooks discerns Miss Emily'scrazed heroism, while Backman notes the (in realistic terms) self-defeatingnature of a strength, however heroic, that is controlled by madness.Stewart connects Miss Emily's unique solution to her difficulties to thatof Miss Havisham in Dicken's Great Expectations. William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Country. . In this description Faulkner suggests with a picture the forbiddingnature of Miss Emily's personalityputatively higher in spirit and body than the common folk, shadowed inmystery. In the first instance, theactivity behind the shutters appears to arise from Miss Emily's quiet butnonetheless (or for that very reason) deliberate flouting of moralconvention. , father) with life's strength begs the question of whetherany incestuous activity went on behind the upstairs bedroomwindow. Upon her death, the townsfolkdiscovered in her upstairs bedroom the decomposed body of her erstwhileputative fiancée and evidence that she had been the bed partner of the bodyfor many years. . In this view, MissEmily and Homer Barron consummated their love behind her upstairs window atone phase of their relationship, and Miss Emily poisoned her lover atanother, final phase. Miss Emily and her fatherhad cut a strikingly unified dramatic figure, "a tableau, Miss Emily aslender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddledsilhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip,the two of them framed by the back-flung front door" (Faulkner 27). New Haven: Yale UP, 1966.Faulkner, William. But the dust that covers everything in that room[after her death] would indicate that Miss Emily had not entered the roomfor many years before her own death" (First Encounters 12-3). William Faulkner: First Encounters. "Miss Havisham and Hiss Grierson." Furman Studies 6. When the peripheral narrator comments that in poverty,isolation, and moral disrepute because of the assumed affair with HomerBarron she "carried her head high enough . A Harbinger Book. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 196 .Howe, Irving. The upstairs window, concealing in stark shadows and light, first, theapparent love affair "behind jalousies[1] closed upon the sun of Sundayafternoon," and later the sickening sight that closes the story is verymuch an emblem of this intransigence of spirit. Fantasy aplenty behind theupstairs window could be inferred. The impact of that image is confirmed by Miss Emily'sintransigence with regard not only to the town'sinvestigation of the smell, but equally to the question of herpaying town taxes, buying arsenic "for rats," and revealinginformation about her personal life. Sullivan also makes a connection between Miss Emily'snecrophilia and the notion of the demon (i.e., forbidden, perverse) loveras expressed in Coleridges "Christabel" (4366). Revised ed. By this he means their relationshiphad all the trappings of romantic, more or less ceremonious love, occurringas it did in Jefferson, which he says "represents what is still anessentially traditional society" (2 4). In this regard, Irving Howe, whodoes not like "A Rose for Emily" very much, notes that the story "may seemtoo dependent on its climax of shock, particularly in its dubious finalsentence" (Howe 192). One senses that her father wouldnot have violated fundamental taboos against the laws of nature,as surely as one senses Miss Emily's outrage at Barron's betraying naturallaw by deserting her. Forthe story seems to have an abundance of "impure" event and nothing butimplication. Indeed, it seems to Faulkner's credit that hedoes not explain the precise nature of activity in the upstairs room in thestory. The character of Miss Emily's love obsession can be related to theconcept of courtly love, indeed the concept of courtly society thatpermeated the South. "A Rose for Emily" was Faulkner's first published shortstory, appearing in 193 , four years after his first novel,Soldier's Pay (Brooks, First Encounters 5). Scholarship on "A Rose for Emily" is sparse compared to that for suchworks as The Sound and the Fury. as if she demanded more thanever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson" (28), it is clearthat the force of Miss Emily's personality is the ultimate determinant ofhow her actions ought to be perceived by Jefferson. The Novels of William Faulkner: A Critical Interpretation. A definitive answeris not to be found in the story, although it suggests a sexualityabout Miss Emily so romantic, courtly, and naive that it couldperhaps only find the most grotesque expression when confrontedwith rather disagreeable reality. Sheexplains Miss Emily's actions as a "bizarre manner of claiming Homer Baron[sic] as her own" (3 4) and sees her as a figure of the Obsessed Lover.Vickery, then, takes the view that Miss Emily is driven to achieveemotional and sexual fulfillment, a kind of fealty from the object of herdesires. One can say this for MissHavisham, that she never poisoned anybody with chemicals. Much of the action of "A Rose for Emily" concerns specula-tion aboutMiss Emily's activity behind the upstairs window. It is their undeniable inescapable generalcharacter that is conveyed. n.d.Hoffman, Frederick J., and Vickery, Olga W. After the death of her father, she appeared to bepassively acceptant of her lot in life, until when Homer Barron awakenedand then betrayed forgotten passions and made inevitable the moment of hismurder. Thenarrator, along fellow towns-folk, sees her looking down from that windowfrom time to time, especially when they sprinkle lime around the house toalleviate the bad smell coming from there: "As they recrossed the lawn, awindow that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the lightbehind her, and her upright torso motion-less as that of an idol" (Faulkner27). Whereas Miss Emily's fatherhad been a striking and dramatic silhouette, Homer Barron was simply "abig, dark, ready man, with a voice and eyes lighter than his face"(Faulkner 28). Then, any action she took would have been premeditated, tinged withritual, irrevocable, and laden with eternal consequence. This is the meaning of the final sentence of thestory, which notes that the pillow next to Barron's body bears "a longstrand of iron-gray hair" (Faulkner 31). Noting the similaritiesbetween Miss Emily's dustladen upstairs bridal chamber and Miss Havisham'sbanquet room, he sees decay as the common element rooms (Stewart 22). In this regard,Brooks quotes one sentence in the story that he says "is well worthpondering: 'Thus she passed from generation to generation--dear,inescapable, impervious, tranquil, perverse'" (First Encounters 12). In any case, the image of medievalcourtly love would be consistent with the image of the antebellum South(existing before the Civil War). William Faulkner: A Critical Study. H.L. Brooks prefaces another discussion of Miss Emily's emotional core withan explanation of Denis de Rougemont's view that the tradition of medievalcourtly love implied "not fleshly union in a world of created [i.e.,romantic, heroic] forms but a release from consuming passion through death"(Brooks, Yoknapatawpha 198). William Faulkner: Three Decades of Criticism. . Such adescription has the tension and texture of sexuality, of life lived,however platonically, in an atmosphere of vibrance and self-aware drama.This is the emotional core that determines the character of the "high andmighty Griersons" (Faulkner 26), so unacceptable to the gross, teemingworld" (Faulkner 26) of common folk in Jefferson. Sullivan, for example, sees anoedipal connection (resulting from the Oedipus complex) between the deathof Miss Emily's father and her later embrace-figuratively and physically--of Homer Barron. . The courtly ideal must be seen as a psychologicalbenchmark for intercourse at all levels. He concludes that "with Miss Emily, theromantic love which Rougemont insists is actually a love of death hasfulfilled itself literally" (2 5). Then, unaccountably he disappeared, leaving heralone. . In this view, she was "romantically obsessed"(Brooks, Yoknapatawpha 2 5), and the ultimate expression of equating theaccidentals of romantic love with reality would have to be pathological.For Brooks, there is little ambiguity in "A Rose for Emily." He says thatMiss Emily's actions, are an "extreme instance of such [courtly] love, onein which the love madness has moved across the line into actual insanity.Miss Emily Grierson poisons the lover who was about to desert her and keepshis body in one of the upstairs bedrooms of the house in which she livesalone" (Brooks, Yoknapatawpha 2 5). An impulse against life,however, is curiously consistent with Miss Emily's steely resolve in so many areasof her existence. Backman, meanwhile,compares Miss Emily with Gail Hightower of Light in August, noting thatthey areemblematic of "the Southerner who clutches so deludedly at a dead past thatlife itself is denied. Brooks characterizes Miss Emily and Homer Barron as courtlylovers (Yoknapatawph 2 5). But then, hergroom had the Victorian prudence to desert before the relationship had beenconsummated. Baton Rouge; Louisiana State UP, 1964.-----------------------[1] Jalousies: Old French meaning jealousies.[2] Hoi polloi: Greek meaning many or the masses. (1958, Fall): 21-3.Sullivan, Ruth Elizabeth. In this comment is contained the judgment of perverselove consummated behind the doors of the upstairs room, just as in thefinal sentence of the story is contained the concrete image of the minglingof an initially naive, then iron-willed maiden with the rough-hewn,braggart man of the world. The former condition would suggest a moreactive agent of murder, and Miss Emily's consistently stoic behavior arguesagainst this, for a more passive connotation. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1966.Brooks, Cleanth. Spinstermember of one of the first families of the town, Miss Emily for a brieftime appeared to have been on the brink of marrying aYankee fellow. Irrespective of the validity of the Freudian connection, thesubtext is all. Miss Emily's profound, disappointedpassion appears not to have allowed for the inefficiencies of HomerBarron's roving eye and innocent commitment to freedom. From this image, Brooks concludesthat Miss Emily "held Barron in her arms after he had died--perhaps whilehe died. She could wither officialdom andweaker spirits with a look, stand in silent dignity above the concerns oflesser human beings. New Haven: Yale UP, 1983.Brooks, Cleanth. She has insisted on choosing a lover in spite of the criticism of the town. "A Rose for Emily." Point of View. About the same time, a mysterious odor emanated from herhouse for a few weeks, but disappeared. New York: Random House, 1952.Menken. In this regard,Vickery positions "A Rose for Emily" as a story built around the theme ofthe "Obsessed and Reluctant Lover" (Vickery, Novels, 3 3-5, passim). And the reference to the iron-gray hair and its length wouldsuggest that perhaps Miss Emily had lain in that bed at least some monthsafter his death . The purpose of this research is to investigate the shorta story "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, with a view towardclarifying a single, important issue of plot: what really went on in theupstairs room. She has not crumpled up under the pressures exerted upon her. New York: Random House, 1955.Stewart, James T. For a woman of Miss Emily's noble lineage, unrequited love willnot serve but must submit to her single-minded resolve. Miss Emily's gradual with-drawal from the smallcommunity of Jefferson may be read not as an impulse for death but ratheras an impulse against life. To the degree that Miss Emily may have been driven to keepup appearances, murdering her lover was preferable to being perceived ashaving been deserted. Homer Barron had something of the image but little of thesoul of her father. Yet layers of meaning can be discerned invarious interpretations of the events that appear to have occurred behindMiss Emily's upstairs bedroom window. She will not be either held up to scorn or pitied. Miss Emily's figureframed in the window is one of the key haunting images of the story. Actual violation of sexualtaboo in the Grierson family, however, cannot be proven and inFreudian terms would be irrelevant to the case, for the suppression of thefantasy itself would be sufficient index ofMiss Emily's Freudian pathology. She has not given in. BothMiss Emily and Miss Havisham have taken unique steps to address theirdisappointment--Miss Havisham in a vain, militantly virginal quest todestroy all men through the use of feminine sexuality, and Miss Emily inmore limited, but far the more final, way. It was Homer's misfortune to overlook the depth ofMiss Emily's passion, playing an unwitting friendly call on his upstairslady friend the last time he passed through Jefferson. The Vintage Mencken. She has refused to be jilted. "Some Variations on the Oedipal Theme in Three Pieces of Fiction: A Rose for Emily,' 'Three Hours After Marriage,' and 'Christabel.'" Dissertation Abstracts International (Tufts U) 33 (1972): 4366.Vickery, Olga. H.L. It isthe imperviousness, the iron will that matches the iron-gray hair, that isthe key to the story and to the events behind the window in the upstairsroom: Miss Emily's mania is a manifestation--warped though it be--of her pride, her independence, her iron will. Virtually anysupposition regarding the gruesomeness of physical love may be conjured upin the final image evoked in the story. Both Emily and Hightower are death-in-life figureswho are characterized by sickly flabbiness and foul decay and who areassociated with dying" (Backman 81). Mencken, among other observers,salutes as having, along with its faults, an authentically "aristocraticimpulse [which] would have fashioned the Confederacy if the fortunes of warhad run the other way" (Mencken 198). If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.