Miss Emily Grierson example essay topic

A Critical Analysis Of "A Rose ForA Critical Analysis Of "A Rose For Emily' In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily' the character of Miss Emily Grierson goes through a drastic transformation throughout the story. Emily changes from a well brought up girl into an isolated and secluded soul that eventually leads her to a mental breakdown. Her transformation is cause by the extreme scrutiny brought on by her father and the town she lives in. Miss Emily lived during a time when the industrial revolution prevailed. Many differences occurred during that time by the older and new generations. The older members of the town wanted her to behave appropriately and live up to her family name.

Meanwhile Emily just wants to be able to express her true self and to look for happiness with someone that loves her. Many perceive this "A Rose for Emily' as a story about a crazy and deranged woman who killed her lover and slept with the body for about forty years. But this is also a story about the gender roles during the Southern mid 1900's. Emily Grierson was caught between who society wanted her to be and whom she really is inside. Throughout Emily's childhood she was put under extreme pressure to live up to her family name. The whole town put her up on a pedestal and scrutinized her every move.

Right at the beginning of the story, the townspeople are shown with quite an interest in Emily's life. The first paragraph already establishes her status in the town. When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one had seen in at least ten years (Charters 469). Since her family once held a major position in the town, she was seen as a monument. They did not go to her funeral out of respect for her; they went to fulfill their growing curiosity of her life all through the years. Every since Emily was a young girl, she was sheltered from the outside world.

Her father pushed away all her potential suitors, saying, "none of the young men were quite good enough for [her]' (471). He kept her confined in the house and never allowed for anyone to get near her. As William Faulkner says in his criticism, "The Meaning of ' A Rose for Emily,' ' her father was "a selfish man who didn't want her to leave home because he wanted a housekeeper' (Charters 1461). With this selfishness her father abolished all hopes of happiness for Emily.

She was stuck in her father's world with no way out. Emily was under extreme pressure to live up to her family name and maintain their status. As a town member said, "She carried her head high enough – even when we believed that she was fallen' (472). She was fallen from the world of her high-class family and into the world of the common, all witnessed under the eyes of everyone around her. When Emily's father died, she was left all alone. She told the town "that her father was not dead for three days' (471).

For all of Emily's life, her father was the only one that kept her company. Now she was faced with all the pressure of being part of the "Grierson' family all by herself. She was the "last Grierson' in the town and thus due to this, the town scrutinizes her even more. Soon after her father's death, Emily soon took interest in Homer Barron. He was like a forbidden fruit that Emily never tasted before. Homer and Emily came from two different worlds.

He was "a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face [who] cuss [ed] at the niggers ' (472). He was hired by the town to pave the sidewalks. Emily, on the other hand, came from a prestigious and high-ranked family. Homer expected Emily to do things that were beyond the limits of her social status.

He was often seen staying over at her house and riding around town together. The town began to say that she "was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people' (473). The town cannot possibly accept the fact that a Grierson will get involved with a "Northerner, a day laborer' (472). They had lost their respect for Miss Emily.

Many thought that she had loss her "noblesse oblige. ' They feel pitiful for her and since all respect is lost of her all she is now seen as a commoner. She wasn't only a disgrace to the town but to herself and her family as well. Emily was trapped between the social pressures given to her by the townspeople and her growing need to be free from all those restraints. All Emily ever wanted was happiness. Her father took that away from her because he wouldn't let her get involved with anybody citing that no one was good enough for her.

William Faulkner states that Emily was a "young girl with a young girl's normal aspirations to find love and then a husband and a family, who was brow-beaten and kept down by her father' (1461). Even though she knows that Homer Barron was a laborer and a carefree person she still insisted on being with him because he was her last chance at happiness. She was already thirty and plus no one else will get involved with her because everyone in that town has been embedded with the concept that no one was good enough for her and Emily is perfectly aware of this. This eventually leads to her mental breakdown.

When Homer wants to leave, she has no other choice but to poison and kill him. Now she can have the best of both worlds. She can maintain her family name with dignity and keep Homer by her side forever as her lifelong companion. The actions taken by Miss Emily Grierson are justifiable in her own sense. She was raised under tremendous scrutiny of the townspeople and her over-protective father. The Grierson family was royalty in the little town of Jefferson.

The town represented the traditional ways of thinking. A woman of Emily's status should be kept at home and marry a man that had the same social position as her. But Emily wanted to live in the new world. A world were social barriers weren't present. A world where she can be free from the pressures of society and set her heart free to do whatever she wanted. It was the inner conflict she had with these two worlds that eventually led her to her mental breakdown.

If Emily were just seen as a regular citizen without the intense scrutiny of everybody else, her life would have been much happier. But instead she embarks along a disastrous path that brought along a tragic ending for her, a woman of "noblesse oblige. '.