William Faulkner "A Rose for Emily" - Research Paper Example

Lecturer Essay # Character analysis of Emily In the short story A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, the offers insights into the life of Emily Grierson, and her death. Readers get a deep understanding of the people of Jefferson, the fiction al city where the story takes place. The character of Emily is well brought out in the story: her life and how she interacted with the people of Jefferson. Emily is a manipulative and secretive woman, limiting people’s access to her life and identity. Emily’s controlling and manipulative nature is brought out when she refuses to allow Homer Barron to abandon her.

She decided to purchase arsenic poison which she used to kill Homer. It is evident that she wanted to control the life of Homer, the man who attempted to abandon her. Furthermore, in the final section of the story, it is revealed hat Emily is a necrophiliac. In a deeper sense, this further illustrates how Emily wanted to control others. Her attraction to dead bodies simply means that she had the powerful desire to be in total control of others. The secretive side of Emily is also clear. In her analysis of the story, Renne Curry (1994) argues that Emily was unavailable even to the narrator.

Curry notes that there was limited knowledge of Emily, and her life remained a mystery. There was an “extended period of limited knowledge” (Curry, 391). Indeed, in the story, the narrator says that the front door to Emily’s house remained closed for much of her life. In addition, Emily refused to state the reason for buying the arsenic poison, further illustrating her secretive nature. Emily is also a character who lives in denial. She is reluctant to accept the reality. She is some kind of ‘avatar’ because she does not believe in death (Davis, 35).

For instance, when her father died, she refused to admit this fact and went ahead and kept his body. In addition, it can be argued that after she killed Homer, she continued to live in denial by keeping Homer’s body. She is portrayed as a woman who not only resists the passage of time but also resists change (Davis, 38). For example, when numbers were being attached to houses, she did not allow the authorities to attach a number to her house. This is an illustration of how she refused to accept change.

Works CitedCurry, Renee R.  “Gender and authorial limitation in Faulkner’s ‘ A Rose for Emily.’ (Special Issue: William Faulkner)." The Mississippi Quarterly 47.3 (1994): 391+. Academic OneFile. Web. 15 Feb. 2013. Davis, William V. “ Another Flower for Faulkner’s Bouquet: Theme and Structure in ‘ A rose for Emily’.” Notes on Mississippi Writers 7.2 (Fall 1974): 34-38. Rpt. in Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2013.Literature Resource Center. Web. 15 Feb. 2013.