Critical Appreciation of A Rose for Emily - Essay Example

? “A Rose for Emily A Critical Appreciation William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a short gothic tale set in the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi. The story focuses on the life of the last living Grierson family member, Emily Grierson. The events take place during the racially fueled turmoil prevalent in the rural Southern states of America. The residents of the town are the standard white Americans, like the inhabitants of any other small town during the end of nineteenth century. The creepy house in which Emily lives is the epicenter of the mystery in the story. The representation of death and decay, involving the house, the town, and Emily herself are shown through her relationships with the male characters of the story. Emily symbolizes the victimized generation in South America after the civil war. She also stands as a metaphor of changes in womanhood and the society. This paper is a critical appreciation of the story. The central character in the story, Emily Grierson, stands as a symbol, representing a tradition. She is given the responsibility of upholding that tradition. The unknown narrator in the story calls her a “fallen monument”. Faulkner deliberately takes a woman to represent a fading tradition. Her emotions are shaped by her community which is responsible for creating such female victims. As Abby H. P. Weslock has written in her brief note on feminism, “A feminist critique, however, reveals Emily as a casualty of patriarchy and literally of her own father and lover” (Abby 245). She is both an idol and a victim because she is admired for keeping the tradition and also victimized for doing her duty. At the surface level, the story is about death, murder, and the changes in the social conditions during a transition period in America. However, at the bottom level, the theme is love and passion. Emily very desperately needs a man. Her passions were suppressed by the conventions of her society in which she lived, and she had absolutely no control over the situations. The narrator comments that “even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized” (Faulkner). The only white light in her life is seen when Baron steps in, but that too does not last. The denial of this only chance drives her into insanity, turning her into a murderer. “We remembered all the young men her father had driven away”, points out the narrator (Faulkner). Emily, therefore, lives as a representative of those who made her pace between social obligations and physical passion. She is a fine example showing how one’s passions turn into psychic illness. In short, her case is that of necrophilia. The attitudes of the people in the town serves as a contrast to Emily’s options in her life: she is “a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town” (Faulkner). In other words, the attitudes of the people are patriarchal. Emily lives an isolated life, “no visitor had passed since she ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier” (Faulkner). It is important to note that her miseries are not the result of her actions in life. In fact, she has no choice to act. The imagery used by the narrator to show the quantum of her isolation is: “She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water” (Faulkner). The story can, therefore, be called a sexist text, because, basically it deals with the victimization of female sex. However, the narrator remains neutral to the old and new attitudes, leaving the readers to decide who wins, whether man or Emily. Robert Crosman observes that “If there is a battle between the sexes in “A Rose for Emily”, the reader must decide who wins” (Robert 361). Faulkner thus very cleverly involves the readers too with his skilful narrative techniques for judging Emily’s actions in the old mansion. A second closer look at how the tradition of patriarchy has made her insane is imperative. The story, “A Rose for Emily”, has been seen by scholars and critics, particularly by the feminists, as a fine text to study the victimization of women by patriarchy. Judith Fetterley says that “A Rose for Emily” is a “story not of conflict between the South and the North or between the old and the new order; it is a story of the patriarchy North and South, new and old, and of the sexual conflict within it” (Judith, 270). In a way, Emily is portrayed in the story as a trapped woman who can escape only through her marriage. That she is not able to take up any work and live decently shows again the powerful influence of the Southern tradition. Emily is trapped with all kinds of gender restrictions. The excessive control from outside drives her into insanity. Finally she becomes a clinical case, a pathological case. As expressed by Brooks and Penn Warren, “her ‘madness’ is meaningful after all. It involves issues which in themselves are important and have to do with the world of conscious moral choice” (Brooks, 57). The world may condemn her as a “fallen woman”, but the feminist reality is that she rises from her ashes to establish equality and freedom for women. The new structural devices used in the story by the writer help him in highlighting the miseries of the central character more effectively. This technique has shown the way for several future writers to experiment with new narrative strategies. Faulkner tells Emily’s pathetic life by jumbling time in order to effectively tell his story and to show how good it is if the chronology of events is shuffled. “Faulkner’s style is labyrinthine, often involved in discontinuity of time and place, often appearing to the reader as more difficult than it should be”, says Oliver Egbert (Egbert, 82). This method enables the readers to enjoy reading the best part of the characters’ life first and also the best emotions. The readers’ attention must be on the use of tense in the story to grasp the difference the story makes. Verbs like “died”, “went”, “had been”, etc, are followed by an instant “now”. In fact, the story begins with the narration of Emily’s funeral. “And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson”, tells the narrator at the beginning” (Faulkner). After using past perfect, the narrator goes back to Emily’s past, the initial days when her tax was due. It was the time she was painting, and it took place “eight or ten years earlier”. After this comes what the neighbors feel about her. Emily seems to be arresting her time here, to preserve her youth. The author keeps the time in a confused state to make the obscurity of Emily more intense. This is how the time is shown moving in the story: “Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped, going in and out with the market basket” (Faulkner). At last when Baron, the Yankee enters the scene, a ray of hope is seen. However, the subsequent events disappoint the readers. Not only the sequence of events given in the story is very complex, but the events also are quite baffling. The narrator gives an account of the way Emily’s father has driven away all her suitors. No neighbor knows what really happens in her house. In fact, the town is a powerful character in the story:” this town is a character with a voice and values. And this town, understood as setting, character, and narrative voice, controls "A Rose for Emily" from opening through closing sentence”, as stated by Mary Ellen Byrne (Mary). The writer keeps all the cards up in his arms and brings them out only according to his likes and dislikes. Emily’s life and the mysteries in it are brought out after narrating the event of her funeral. The events related to her house, her father, taxes, painting, etc slowly after the funeral. A conventional writer would have revealed the news of the discovery of the hair and the Skelton much earlier. Here the author prefers to place them in a jumbled way. The readers have to reshuffle and arrange the events to know when Emily deserves the rose and how she became a witch. The readers anticipate a suicide when she buys the poison, but it does not happen. In the same way, the stench comes at an unexpected moment. Her question at the drug store suddenly comes back to the reader’s mind after a gap: “"Is that a good one?" (Faulkner). The rat too adds curiosity, but till the end of the story nothing is certain. Whether one’s life is lived truly or not, death and decay are implicit in nature is an important message emerging from the story. The only sign of life in the form of Baron also fades soon. As Jim Barloon suggests, “Perhaps the most intriguing, if unanswerable question raised by the story is, what happened between Emily and Homer?  Were they lovers?” (Jim). Emily and rose in the title raise happy anticipations, but, instead, what is seen in the story is everything quite unfortunate. Emily’s mansion “smelled of dust and disuse--a close, dank smell”, says the narrator (Faulkner). The reality of a beautiful girl getting ruined in an old mansion without sipping the sweetness of life leaves the story altogether grotesque makes it gothic. The only companion of Emily outside the house is a mysterious servant, and inside it is the hidden corpse. Everything is obscure and dark in the story, the servant being no exception. However, the story depicts the dark reality of a society. Faulkner points out that the southern tradition gives value only for artificial conventions and high positions. Whether what goes on in the mansion or the indifference of the people is cruel is for the readers to see: “they were not surprised when the smell developed”, says the narrator (Faulkner). The Greisens only want to maintain an unreal and unethical class distinction. Their attitude is very unnatural. Emily, therefore, shines in the story as a symbol of the victims of such an unhealthy tradition and the world around it. She is now a celebrated woman in literature for resisting an unpleasant trend. “A Rose for Emily”, as discussed here, portrays the pathetic reality of an innocent girl trapped in a patriarchal society. Here in the story the society is Faulkner’s South. As already observed, the story is marvelous both for its form and content. It highlights a dirty past, presents a robust present, and looks forward towards a rosy future. The story deals with a universal theme, shows what happens if a woman is neglected and suppressed, and it is presented in a style which strengthens the art of writing fiction. The story imparts education, and it provides the need of inculcating moral values which can enrich life and add happiness to all. Faulkner is optimistic though the story reveals the darker side of ma. That is why he offers a rose to Emily. In his Nobel speech he says: “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail” (Faulkner). “A Rose for Emily “has earned its rightful place in literature. Works Cited Barloon, Jim. “A Rose for Homer? The Limitations of a Reader-Response Approach to Faulkner’s "A Rose for Emily". http://www.semo.edu/cfs/teaching/index_10186.htm Brooks, Cleanth and Robert Penn Warren. “Interpretation: A Rose for Emily”. Literary Theories in Praxis, edited by Shirley F. Staton. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993. Byrne, Mary Ellen. “Town and Time: Teaching Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"” http://www.semo.edu/cfs/teaching/index_4884.htm Crosman, Robert. “How Readers Make Meaning”, Literary Theories in Practice, edited by Shirley F. Staton, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993. Egbert, S. Oliver. “Introduction”, Edited. American Anthology, 1890- 1965, . New Delhi: Eurasia Publishing House, 2000. Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily”. Web. http://www.ariyam.com/docs/lit/wf_rose.h “Nobel Award Acceptance Speech). American Anthology, 1890- 1965, edited by Dr. Egbert S. Oliver. Fetterley, Judith. “A Rose for “A Rose for Emily””. Literary Theories in Praxis. Weslock, Abby. H. P. “Feminism/Feminist Criticism”, Companion to American Short Story, Second Edition, New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009. Read More