A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner - Essay Example

 A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner Introduction The movie chosen is “A Rose for Emily”. This film is based on the short story written by American writer in William Faulkner. The movie is extremely intriguing because of more reasons than one. Financial fraud takes place in the movie but it is very difficult to judge the nature of the offence because the character who commits the fraud loses her sanity in the movie. There are certain specific traits to Emily’s character and close analysis of those traits show that it is not the humane persona of Emily that was exhibiting such traits. Society and its different components have developed these types of traits in Emily’s character. It seems that Faulkner has developed the character of Emily with the purpose of exposing the society and how mean it can be to some individuals. Through the character of Emily, the film exhibits the hidden desires of black women in the contemporary society, wishing for social aristocracy on the social plain. What was the movie about? The movie shed light upon the theme of decay and how Emily loses everything in her life, she stops talking to everyone and decides to totally cut herself off from the society. She also commits financial fraud by not paying her taxes. The authorities sent her several notices but she decided to ignore them and never paid the dues to the government clearly committing financial fraud. To their respective existence in the society, both black and white people were striving side by side. Due to this reason the racial discrimination aspect was dormant and both black and white people come close to each other. It is one of the main reasons that Homer Barron and Emily reach so close to each other that they develop an emotional bond among them. However, Emily was possessive about her beloved to such an extent that after the first time that she left her, she was desperate to ensure that Barron would stay with her for the rest of her life. Consequently, she kills him and preserves him in her house. Apparently, Emily’s action can be interpreted in general terms of blind love but an attempt to analyzing her character from social perspective makes it clear that as Emily, unlike other black women of her time had a white partner she actually developed a kind of pride that consequently nourished her imaginary sense of social aristocracy. It was impossible for her to sacrifice that cherished sense of aristocracy and by killing Barron she finally retains her self-pride. Emily’s State of Mind The film is very intriguing and covers many aspects of human personality, Emily is the most important character in the story and she takes her revenge in the story by killing Homer. She supposedly poisoned Homer to death. She bought rat poison to kill Homer; Homer was last seen by the people residing in the same locality as Emily entering the kitchen of Emily’s house. Emily becomes so desperate in the story that she forgets everything and seeks emotional support from the corpse of Homer. She cannot be blamed for revenge in the story. She was emotionally broken and had no friends or family members who she could connect with. Homer was the only person in the story who shows promising signs of bringing Emily to sanity but she soon discovers that he was interested in men and she could not digest this fact. Out of utter desperation she chose to poison Homer. This is quite evident from the fact that the corpse of Homer was found in the bed room of her house when she died. The locality members were shocked when they opened the room after several long years. She used to embrace the corpse of Homer and derive emotional support. This cannot be called as revenge; this is utter desperation to seek emotional support. Laws broken by Emily and Homer Emily and Homer both commit frauds of different nature in the movie. Emily does not pay her taxes and Homer ditched Emily by not marrying her. Homer had promised Emily that she would marry her but he was interested in men and not in women, ultimately Emily decides to kill homer and keep his corpse in her bedroom because she was excessively in love with Homer. Killing Homer was another law that Emily broke; it was a clear case of murder. Her thoughts are necrophilia and unusual, her actions are dreadful, impulsive and eccentric. The decay proceeds further into the cells of her brain as she managed to take drastic steps and leads a life, which does not conform to that of a normal human being. Whether it is from the extreme domination of her father to maintain the so called aristocracy or the betrayal by Homer, Miss Emily had turned into a woman with unusual thoughts, perverse actions and orientation of mind and also a totally decayed character who find her solace in preserving her cruel bloody deed. Her inability to accept the reality is also a result of this decay, which results from various kinds of oppression and depression. Her character draws interest due to more than one factor. Firstly, she has shown strength of character by loving one man despite all odds and sticking to her love at all costs. Secondly, she has also demonstrated her enigma, which lay in the contrasting aspects of her weakness and insecurity on one hand and her tremendous power on the other. She has killed her love silently without letting anybody know. Type of Financial Fraud Emily committed a very serious offence by not paying her taxes, back in her days it was not a serious offence but these days not paying taxes is a very serious offence. A person who has not paid their taxes can be fined and imprisoned for several years. Emily cared two hoots about her taxes and decided not to pay them even after receiving several warnings from the Mayor of her town. The mayor even visited her house to collect taxes but she flatly refused paying her taxes by saying she does not have to pay taxes because her father had already donated enough money to the town and that money should be settled as their taxes. Outcome Emily was not punished in the movie for not paying taxes; the mayor pursued the case for a while but as other mayors who had come before him decided to ignore Emily. No punishment was levied on Emily for not paying her taxes. The character of Emily, within its microcosmic scope, incorporates several socio-historical aspects. It is through her character that an audience understands the actual social condition and the essential social factors that are important to understand psychological development of an individual in the contemporary society. Racism is one of the most important aspects, which has always inspired the southern gothic writers to incorporate the theme with the purpose of showing the suffering of individuals under such situation. Faulkner’s understanding of the social reality discloses even harsher facts of life as he incorporates within his writing as well as portrayal of the characters various socio-politico-economic aspects and influence of all these factors over the psychology of an individual. Real World Scenario Recently several people in India have been imprisoned because their annual income was way above the tax slab and they did not bother paying their taxes. There are many who have been caught in the last 5 years and almost all of them have been imprisoned for not paying their taxes. Emily was lucky that she got away lightly, she was neither fined nor imprisoned for not paying her taxes. The character of Emily can be interpreted in more ways than one. Different people will have different stands when it comes to the character interpretation of Emily. According to me she was a victim of the society. She gets no emotional support whatsoever from the society. She was a spinster and she was restricted from marrying anyone for a large part of her life because of her father. The introduction of Homer makes the story very intriguing. The readers get are convinced by the author that all the suffering of Emily will come to an end when she marries Homer but that does not happen as the story reaches its climax. The traits portrayed by Emily are very typical traits associated with women. She isolated herself from the society; she never spoke to anyone except her Negro servant of which very little is known in the story. She even killed Homer who she loved so much, she was heartbroken to know that Homer was interested in men rather than women and he was her last hope to keep her sanity. She was frustrated and in complete despair when she lost her father, her father should have allowed her to look for suitable men to take care of her when he passes away but he was too selfish to do that and inevitably Emily suffered the most because of her father’s selfishness. Many would argue that the assassination of Homer can never be justified but an emotionally broken person is capable of doing almost anything let alone killing the dear ones. Had she married Homer, then it would have been a different story altogether but that did not happen and this is exactly why the story is all about grief and somber. Emily goes completely insane; there are many examples to prove the same, a classic example of the same is when the members of the tax authority come to her house to collect the dues, she tells them to ask Colonel Sartoris for the advance taxes that she had already paid but she knew very little about the death of Colonel that had taken place long age in the movie. This goes to show that she was mentally affected by the way people who came in her life behaved with her, the society should have helped her but that was not quite the case and ultimately she died having no relatives and no near and dear ones. The theme of the movie largely revolves around the character of Emily and the story only goes to show that emotional satisfaction is a must to avoid insanity and how a person derives the same, depends largely on that individual. Conclusion The story tells us of a particular case of obsession and possessiveness, which leads Emily, the center character of the play to kill Homer, the man she loved, as she feared he might leave her. She wanted to make sure that he would be with her always and never disposed of the body. The movie begins with the funeral of Emily and the town people reveal the story of the girl who is referred to as “poor Emily”. The movie also points out the mental pressure created from being a socialite where one is restrained to hold back one’s feelings in order to maintain a certain degree of reputation. May be it was this stress that made an eccentric person out of Emily. The term “rose” has been used to denote the dangerous passion that Emily nurtured for Homer Barron ho initially left her only to come back after his work but the girl killed him in order to gain a strange kind of security that is possible only in cases of mental disorderliness. The story does not end here. Emily preserves his body till the end of her life in a way that it does not decay. The theme of decay is prominent through very aspects in the story. For Emily death has no real implication and therefore she is keen to keep the body alive. A Rose for Emily is an intriguing movie in which Emily commits financial fraud by not paying her taxes but she does not get punished because back in her days not paying taxes was not a big offence but time has changed and paying taxes has become mandatory. People who refrain from paying their taxes are either imprisoned or fined a very hefty amount these days. Emily’s case was much different, she had lost her sanity and had cut herself off from the society that she lived in although this is not an excuse to not pay your taxes. References Chubbuck, Lyndon. (Director). (1983). A Rose for Emily. United States: Chubbuck Production Company Read More