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"A ROSE FOR EMILY."   Term Paper ID:24500 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analyzes short story's theme, conflicts, characters, symbolism, Oedipal aspect, view of Southern values.... More...

7 Pages / 1575 Words 8 sources, 21 Citations, MLA Format $28.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Analyzes short story's theme, conflicts, characters, symbolism, Oedipal aspect, view of Southern values. Paper Introduction: The purpose of this research is to examine the short story "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, as a story of conflict between values of the old South and a woman's desperation for love. The plan of the research will be to set forth the personal and career context for the story and its salient points of the story, and then to discuss the manner in which psychological factors appear to influence the conflict of the story. Born in Mississippi in 1897, Faulkner was largely confined to the small town of Oxford until a Yale Law School graduate from the Oxford area guided his reading habits and encouraged his writing (Millgate 54; Blotner 105-6). Thus he "grew up in the provincial milieu of North Mississippi but transformed himself to a citizen of the larger world beyond it" (Blotner 105). Faulkner's work is distinguished by his Yoknapatawpha County stori 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. . Loneliness and social ineptitude masquerading as social superiority 3. Level I: Oedipal images 1. A Midland Book. Isolating herself in her aristocratic attitudefrom the community and then ignoring community reaction to what appears tobe her flouting of convention in the service of her id (pleasure instinct)in general and her libido (sexual instinct) in particular would seem tomake a virtue of necessity. Published in 193 , this washis first printed short story; he had been a published writer for fouryears, with Soldier's Pay the first novel and The Marble Faun the firstcollection of poetry (Brooks 5). Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1962.West, Ray, and Stallman, Robert. Consequences of a disappointed love: the grim discovery about Emily and HomerIV. Faulkner's environment is one of the post-Reconstruction and early-twentieth-century South in transition and intension with itself, but critics cite themes worked out "not in terms ofthe South against the North, but in terms of issues which are common to ourmodern world" (Warren 129). Pathology of ego failure vis-à-vis superego of social convention The force of Emily'spersonality, exalted social position, and "contempt for public opinion . With her father b. But hermanner of enacting it in private conceals, until her death, an emotionaltruth marked by nothing like social superiority but by internal conflict. But the mere familiarity of the Oedipal image does not necessarilyexplain the psychological content of the story. Much of the action of "A Rose for Emily" turns on the town'sunwillingness to challenge Emily. With the town of Jefferson c. . Sullivan sees an Oedipal link between the deathof Emily's father and her later embrace--figurative and physical--of HomerBarron, connecting Emily's necrophilia and the notion of the demon lover asexpressed in Coleridge's "Christabel" (4366). Another interpretation, not unrelated to the foregoing but moresinister and thickly textured, is possible as well. Emily's behavior: aristocratic arrogance or mask for insecurity? Emily's character and behavior A. In poverty, isolation, and apparent moral disrepute because of whatthe town assumes to have been a love affair with the Yankee laborer, she"carried her head high enough . That, not independentspirit, explains her denying her father's death, ignoring inquiries aboutHomer, her dramatic change in physical appearance, and the apparentserenity with which she dismisses presumed social inferiors in general. Anyway, he disappeared; Emily never explained why. But true to her first-family roots, she secludedherself in an imperious manner, more or less consistent with theexpectations of a small Southern town and more than once going so far as tobrush off appeals from city fathers to pay her taxes or otherwiseaccommodate the city fathers. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1979.Freud, Sigmund. It may appear that Emily's high-handed social manner is an assertionthat she is superior to everyone else, but it may also be that the mannerconceals profound feelings of inferiority. Born in Mississippi in 1897, Faulkner was largely confined to thesmall town of Oxford until a Yale Law School graduate from the Oxford areaguided his reading habits and encouraged his writing (Millgate 54; Blotner1 5-6). . as if she demanded more than ever therecognition of her dignity as the last Grierson" (12). Refusal to interact with townspeople 2. Anabsence of both ego and conscience also explains how she could live whatcomes down to a shockingly grotesque existence, with the body of Homer inthe upstairs room. The conventions and expectationsof small-town life in the South are that Emily will be imperious andaristocratic in all sorts of ways, and she plays that role perfectly,giving people a lot to talk about. Thus he "grew up in the provincial milieu of North Mississippi buttransformed himself to a citizen of the larger world beyond it" (Blotner1 5). Emily's forbidding personality isperceived as madness by some, but this is the madness of aristocracy.Emily's craziness and extreme dignity are equally mysterious, theirsubstance never quite known because she shares no secrets with others. It is in that sense that "because of hervery fact of isolation and perversity [she] belongs to the whole community.. The willful, id-driven floutingof convention (will, especially a desperate one, is different ego, as Homerlearns to his cost) is not magnificent independence but piteous longing forthe social benefits that a conventional way of life might confer. In the second case, Emily's refusal to admitanyone except her servant to the house--and presumably anyone at all to thebedroom--symbolizes the impregnable shield, both physical and social,between Emily and the hoi polloi. The novels Sartoris and The Sound and theFury had been published in 1929, and Sanctuary had been written but not yetpublished. Sherefuses to be at home to the few ladies of Jefferson who "had the temerityto call" after the disappearance of Homer; she is unmoved by the aldermen'sinvestigation of the smell; she will pay no taxes because she will not paythem Brooks and Warren cite her "tremendous firmness of will": In the matter of the taxes, crazed though she is, she is never at a loss. Civilization and Its Discontents. . In this regard, Brooks and Warrensay her "firmness of will and this iron pride have not kept her from beingthwarted and hurt" (228), first because her iron-willed father scared awayall her young suitors and second, as the reader eventually discovers,because of Homer's abandonment of her. "William Faulkner: The Two Voices." Southern Literature in Transition: Heritage and Promise. William Van O'Connor. The plan of the research willbe to set forth the personal and career context for the story and itssalient points of the story, and then to discuss the manner in whichpsychological factors appear to influence the conflict of the story. Homer Barron and Emily's father B. But the evidence of the story is that after herfather's death she is apparently emotionally and socially incapable offinding a suitor appropriate to her class and background. Emily and her father hadbeen strikingly unified, "a tableau, Emily a slender figure in white in thebackground, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his backto her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flungfront door" (Faulkner 11). She refuses to tell him what she wants the poison for (Brooks and Warren 228). Understanding Fiction. "The Life and Works of William Faulkner." Nobel Prize Library: Faulkner, O'Neill, Steinbeck. "A Rose for Emily" is set in Jefferson. Biographical background of Faulkner B. . She makes no pretense. Deprived of access to emotionalfulfillment, she enacts that fulfillment in a depraved way. West and Stallman indicate that the concealment need not have takenplace if Emily's father had not been too much the small-town aristocrat toallow her personality to as it were blossom in the world in a more or lessordinary way, and that "she might have been saved had Homer Barron beenanother kind of man" (West and Stallman 272). Thus when he dies she has neither guiltnor conscience--perforce not ego, either. 3rd ed. In the first case, the shutters of the houseconceal Emily's quiet but nonetheless (or for that very reason) deliberateflouting of moral convention. She dominates the rather frightened committee of officers who see her. Upon her death, the townsfolk discovered inher upstairs bedroom the decomposed body of Homer Barron--and evidence thatshe had been the bed partner of the body for many years. Works CitedBlotner, Joseph. Role-playingvery much according to social expectations and conventions even whileseeming to flout such conventions--and meanwhile enacting an authentic(i.e., not role-playing) dissociation from what could be called the moralvalue civil society attaches to life and death--confirms her determinationto live life on her own terms. Refusal to explain herself 3. New York: W.W. Level II: Freud's structural hypothesis 1. . Memphis: Memphis State UP, 1983.Sullivan, Ruth Elizabeth. So long as the community assumes no other form than that of the family, the conflict is bound to express itself in the Oedipus complex, to establish the conscience and to create the first sense of guilt. The Art of Modern Fiction. As an aristocrat, after all, she needimpress no one in town. The most she can do is play the imperious role, copyingher father's behavior but less internalizing it as her own than using it toshield against her inmost emotional truth. Spinster daughter of one of the town's first families, Emily fora brief time after her father's death appeared to have been on the brink ofmarrying a Yankee foreman named Homer Barron. Faulkner's work is distinguished by his Yoknapatawpha County stories,produced mainly from the late 192 s to the learly 194 s, which employrepeated use of the same setting (Jefferson, which stands for Oxford) andcharacters from story to story. Over theyears, Emily secluded herself from society, and the town gossip was thatshe was impoverished. . Domination by her father 2. But Emily is not saved, andthe core of the social-personal split that she comes to embody can beidentified with the Oedipal dynamic and indeed with the entire Freudiansocial hypothesis. when she rides around about the town with the foreman whom everybodybelieves is beneath her" (Brooks and Warren 228-9) determines how Jeffersonperceives and behaves toward her. Bizarre consequences of psychological tension 1. It turns out that the intransigence and high-handed manner are a sham.Behind the appearance-conscious and reputation-conscious social values ofthe South are concealed, first, the apparent love affair "behind jalousiesclosed upon the sun of Sunday afternoon" (13) and second, the sickeningsight that closes the story. Failure of ego, absence of conscience a. Introduction A. What began in relation to the father is completed in relation to the group (Freud 79-8 ). Philip Castille and William Osborne. New York: Rinehart, 1954.I. In the matter of her purchase of the poison, she completely overawes the clerk. The narrator, along with fellow townsfolk, sees her framedforbiddingly by an upstairs window from time to time, especially when theysprinkle lime around the house to alleviate the bad smell coming fromthere: "As they recrossed the lawn, a window that had been dark was lightedand Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionlessas that of an idol" (Faulkner 11). Disappointment of Emily's id 2. 1. Never having passedthrough a stage of rebellign against parental authority and feeling guilton that account, she has never gone through the kind of remorse that Freud(78) says is the "origin of conscience and of the sense of guilt."Confronted with new stimuli in the form of a changing world, andundoubtedly aware of what the forms of social discourse and experience are,Emily cannot avoid what Freud calls "cultural struggle" (7 ), as the hardrealities of loneliness amid the of community values shared by Jefferson'scommon folk rush upon her. Form: Straightforward, simple action B. When an attempt is made to widen the community, the same conflict is continued in forms which are dependent on the past; and it is strengthened and results in a further intensification of the sense of guilt. For a woman lacking ego andconscience but aware of social forms of the Old South, the response tolosing access to ceremonies of courtly love would have to be pathological--and, bizarrely enough, would probably make perfect sense to her. "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.Warren, Robert Penn. But Emily never joined the Oedipal battle, instead subsumingher ego and desires in her father. "William Faulkner." Forms of Modern Fiction: Essays Collected in Honor of Joseph Warren Beach. Psychological aspects of the story: Freudian implications A. New Haven: Yale UP, 1983.Brooks, Cleanth, and Warren, Robert Penn. Brooks and Warren cite the "magnificence ofher independence" (229), and her manner of maintaining it in public speaksto the psychology of an aristocrat surrounded by ruined finery. She is unapproachable, above the rest ofthe world. [H]er life is public, even communal" (Brooks and Warren 229). .. Emily's psychology not limited to Oedipal theory 2. The tale is simple, straightforward--and lurid--apparently told by aminor civil servant who is explaining what townspeople had gossiped aboutand what he himself witnessed, with regard to Miss Emily Grierson's lifeand death. It isconsistent, too, with the description of the "high and mighty Griersons"(Faulkner 1 ), contrasted with "the gross, teeming world" (Faulkner 1 ) ofcommon folk in Jefferson. This is a figuration of lovers, not father anddaughter, with the tension and texture of sexuality, of life lived, howeverplatonically, in an atmosphere of energy and self-aware importance. It was not expected that thisfine lady of the provincial South, would marry a Yankee working man from aNorthern city. Content: Relationship between Emily and townsfolkIII. William Faulkner: First Encounters. . It is grounded inFreud's judgment of individuals' typical resolution of the tension betweenOedipal impulses and Oedipal guilt into more or less socially adjustedbeings: [T]he sense of guilt is an expression of the conflict due to ambivalence, of the eternal struggle between Eros and the instinct of destruction or death. New York: Alexis Gregory, Helvetica P, 1971.Brooks, Cleanth. Taking on theapparently unlikely suitor Homer, who does not know enough to be put off,she actually is desperately seeking emotional safe haven that living lifeby the rules of the superego (i.e., as wife and mother in Jefferson) maysupply. . Thedeeper psychology is something squalid and perverse. Some individuals not only resolve these tensions but also "salvagewithout effort from the whirlpool of their own feelings the deepest truths"(Freud 8 ). . C. . Homer Barron: her great love or her last hope? Ed. Emily's aristocratic solitude 1. Her "magnificent independence" of social convention 2. The private, ambiguous Emily 1. The purpose of this research is to examine the short story "A Rose forEmily" by William Faulkner, as a story of conflict between values of theold South and a woman's desperation for love. Refusal to accommodate ordinary social activities B. The Oedipal image of the story is strong. The narrative line A. The character of Emilyillustrates a failure to resolve the Freudian structural hypothesis ofcivilization, which includes but is not limited to the Oedipal argument.Consider the tension in Emily's ego between her absolute acquiescence tothe "superego" figure of her father, and her later absolute disdain (as itseems) of the superego of societal norms of Jefferson. . Emily and her father 2. Emily's public role has a secondary effect, that she protects privateemotions and thoughts from being exposed and protects herself from havingto develop meaningful coping strategies in a social environment that, as itturns out, she is ill-equipped to enter. Publishing context of storyII. Norton & Company, Inc., 1962.Millgate, Michael. With Homer Barron C. . Ed. 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.