Question

What are your thoughts about Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" and about the characters in the story?

Answer 1

The first thing I noticed from the lead character Emily Grierson is that she lacks interaction, human affection and contact. So if a man tried to live by himself or herself without anybody, isolation and loneliness would soon take over his mind and body which could cause him or her to do various crazy things, like in this set we can see Jefferson, Mississippi, Emily grew up as an introvert who never had any suitors because her manipulative father threatens every men who tried to get to know Emily. So when Homer Barron came to her life and showed her what it feels like to be dating and going out on Sunday noon drives, Emily decided to kill Homer Barron by giving him poison with arsenic so that he will never leave her side. She kept his corpse locked for 40 years in the house, and we can conclude that she laid with him every night, as we can observe from the story. Emily possibly developed necrophilia. However, the end seemed as a bitter sweet tragedy. People do crazy things being in love, and no wonder Emily did it to Homer Barron so that she could preserve the presence of her first man, as she felt a sense of love for first time. We will never know what Emily did all those days and years locked up in that house.