A Rose for Emily by Faulkner - Essay Example

Paper An Analysis of “A Rose for Emily” Introduction The work en d “A Rose for Emily” is developed in order to highlight various characters which influence an individual’s life. The character of Emily is representing people who want to change the society and live by their own set of rules. These people are considered highly volatile and emotional because of society’s ruthless attitudes and behaviors towards them. The role of Emily’s father is a representative of people who does not want to embrace the idea of change and more than happy to maintain their status quo and need others to conform to their standards as well. Additionally, the sorts of cases are in a few numbers in a particular society but they use force and aggression as means of increasing their influence over others and the character of Homer is representing people who want to see change in the community but they do not need to and can be happy in living in the present and therefore, the finally mentioned character is a representative of normal people who know art and science of being happy and they practice it with the help of flowing with the flow of time and they tend to control those things that they can and let go of those which they cannot (Faulkner, 8). In the light of above argument, it can be established that the story discussed all of the possible characters that may exist in one’s life but the main focus remained on Emily’s isolation from rest of the village in the story who has been identified as too fat and that is because she is not physically active and socially isolated. However, more detailed character analyses are provided in the following section of the essay. Homer Homer wants to live a fulfilling life and his dream is disturbed by her hopeless potential girlfriend who poisoned her at the end of the story. The message writer of the story wants to give to optimistic people is all about the need to have positive minded social connections and they should and must avoid socializing with failed, depressive and hopeless individuals because they at a deeper level have a profound hatred for hopeful characters of life and that is the big mistake which is committed by Homer and he pays a price with his life. Emily The children are known to develop their basic personalities at the age of five and spend their whole life reaffirming it (Eccles, 38) and Emily was brought up in a depressive environment and her life is indeed the practical picture of despair as it is stated in the tale “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 save an old man-servant—a combined gardener and cook—had seen in at least ten years” (Faulkner, 1). Homer is an optimistic man and he is working with the company that was assigned the job of planting sidewalks in the town and therefore, his objectives are coincidental with those of Emily’s apparent ones and they could have made an effective team but Emily sabotages everything because she believes that she does not deserve a better life and social status as stated “After her fathers death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all” (Faulkner, 2) and Homer has to pay the price of his girlfriend’s negative behavior towards life. Emily’s house is full of dust and it is also disoriented and therefore, it can be inferred that the role does not want to take care of the house because she is not expecting any guests. Emily finally killed Homer because he was trying to push her into becoming more involved into the society and she got enraged by this and did what she thought was right. Emily’s Father The role of Emily’s father signified the presence of a ruthless dictator who does not want to change himself and also does not allow other to change and develop into better human beings. The narrator of the story did have profound distastefulness when it came to dealing with this specific character. The character played a significant role in terms of stopping and preventing Emily’s role from experiencing growth and development as a person. The character of Emily became extremely introvert and also grew into antisocial individual with severe attitudinal problems (Matthews, 61). The condition of Emily got worst when she suddenly bought poison for no apparent reason and that she used to kill her lover in the end. The character failed to realize the importance social strength in order to bring change in the community. She dreamt of a change while her own life got disintegrated around her and her potentials went untapped and unnoticed. The biggest weakness of Emily’s role was her unwillingness to get out of her home and enjoy precious life that has been blessed to her by God. Her inability to change was also significant trait of her personality and therefore, she remains depressed throughout the story and eventually kills her lover who is trying convince her that there is more to her life which meets the eye but again she considers Homer as another person who wants her to change and change is something that Emily does not like. However, the major problem with Emily happened during her bringing up and in those days, she was supposed to live under a strict code of discipline governed by her father. As she grew up and needed to become more independent in life then she came face to face with her fear of freedom and independence and Homer on the other hand, wants her to get freed from her fears in the later years of her life. But again Emily is expected to change which she cannot and in this way, the core message of the story is the manifestation of a belief that parents breed children like them and as Emily’s father is not a big fan of change so does his daughter. The behaviors of both persons are divergent but there deep down feeling and idea about change are the same because they hate to change and want to eliminate people who need them to change as well. The writer is showing his readers characters that die out early in life and wait to get buried at a later stage. The powerful people like Homer are in need to select people who they consider friends with very significant level of care because one’s social circle posses the capability of doing harm to him or herself. Additionally, change is the vehicle of development and if somebody is not developing or growing then this means, they are dying and he or she has the power to destroy others around them as well. Conclusion This review is written in order to analyze key characters of the story and it was found that change is a notion that is reserved for people with open minds and light attitudes and behaviors and hopeless people do not want to change and keep dwelling about the past while there present keeps on ruining in front of their eyes. However, the people like Homer are essence of human development (Boehm and Kubzansky) and they need to pick and choose their friends with great care because Homer suffered as he made a wrong and illogical choice of making friends with Emily who was brought up by her ruthless father in an equally ruthless environment. The major memorandum of the story is simple yet it is hard for many of us to come with grips of it because major human population is trained to consider those people as friends who talk sweet but one should always remain vigilant enough to see whether the person of interest really loves them or not and one can measure others’ love with the amount of time they are spending with them and the level of struggle they are exerting in order to support growth in their partners and Emily was not willing to spend quality time with Homer and she was jealous of his positivity towards life as well so she did not love him. Works Cited Boehm, J K and L D Kubzansky. "The hearts content: The association between positive psychological well-being and cardiovascular health." Psychological Bulletin 138, 4 (2012): 655-691 Online. Eccles, Jacquelynne S. "The Development of Children Ages 6 to 14." The Future of Children 9, 2 (1999): 30-44. Online. Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. New York: Random House, 1930. Online. Mattews, Andrew. Being Happy ! A Handbook for Greater Confidence and Security. New York: Stern Sloan, 1990 Online. Read More