William Faulkner: A Rose for Emily - Essay Example

Writing that utilizes experimental style combined with scrupulous elocution and rhythm characterizes William Faulkner. Stream of consciousness was frequently used by Faulkner which he combined with emotional, delicate, rational, intricate, Gothic and bizarre stories. Stream of Consciousness is a literary technique that tries to portray an individual’s point of view. An investigation into the mind and thought of the character is permitted. This technique is processes in the form of loose interior monologue or in connection with the character sensory reactions with the outside world. The opening of the novel with Miss Emily Grierson funeral which found the whole town attendance wherein “the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument” and the women “mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house….”, portrays a sense of suspicion and an aura of Miss Emily Grierson. Why do the men view her as a ‘fallen monument’ and the women out of curiosity? Immediately the tone of doubt is created and the will to read on to investigate the happenings that lead to the current environment. “Miss Emilys house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores.”, insight into the character of Miss Emily and sets an eerie mood which states that the setting of the house resembles the character Miss Emily who was an unfriendly person. “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town”- a sudden shift from the present to the past. Having set the scenario that Miss Emily was a bizarre person, the words ‘alive’ and ‘tradition’ say that she was a noble person who was filled with life. Then was it death that characterized her as a cynical person? I guess further reading of the story will exhibit an insight into the life of Miss Emily. “When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction”, the rejection of modernity by Miss Emily and her holding on to the past portrays her insecurities as a person. Perhaps Miss Emily fear would have been her incapability’s of facing and enhancing modernity combined with change. Miss Emily world was impeccable and change would destroy her present nostalgia. Still in the past we are introduced to Miss Emily, “a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand”. The usage of diction such as ‘obesity’, ‘bloated’, motionless water’, pallid hue’, ‘coal pressed into lump of dough’ what ghastly description to depict Miss Emily as a horrifying creature. This would only remind one of a haggard witch living in an old dilapidated house and which frightens all around her. At this stage I wonder was Miss Emily really so horrifying that she lacked humanistic qualities? “ Just as if a man--any man--could keep a kitchen properly, "the ladies said; so they were not surprised when the smell developed. It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons.” This statement reveals the fact that men are incapable beings in every field of life. For the Negro man who worked for Miss Emily was incapable of keeping the kitchen clean and therefore the stink. This smell stands as another implication of the relation between Miss Emily and the outside world. Also the uncontrollable urge in the other inmates of the town to investigate and protrude into Miss Emily house and life. “….a window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol.” Miss Emily a mysterious woman whose life haunts everyone and whose physical features kindle curiosity in all. “None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door.” Having established the fact that Miss Emily was gruesome this flashback into the younger days of Miss Emily, which senses a sign of relief to know that at one stage Miss Emily, was not insane but sane. Imagine beginning with the death of Miss Emily proceeding back to the past and investigating her life now we proceed even further into the past wherein Miss Emily is found in her youth. Maybe this can be divided into stages the present representing her funeral, the present past i.e. her life just before she died where she totally shuts her self inside her house and the third stage her regress-ional past into her life when she lived as a normal person interacting with society. “…..even with insanity in the family she wouldnt have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized.” Emphasizing the fact that Miss Emily family was also crazy. Therefore this forms as an excuse for Miss Emily current condition of craziness and her refusal of marriage. I guess this only epitomizes the extent a society goes to knit yarns. Refusing to accept her father death, “She told them that her father was not dead”, proves that Miss Emily was not prepared to accept reality. Maybe her fathers love and the world her father created for her she was unwilling to let go. Cognitive psychological is exhibited in the behavior of Miss Emily wherein the mental function is determined by quantitative and scientific methods. This concept of death and adjustment, Sigmund Freud proclaims that mostly everyone fears’s death. But this fear is merely a disguise for a deeper source of concern. People who demonstrate death related fears or denial of the death of their loved ones only reveal that such kind are trying to deal with unresolved childhood issues and conflicts which find themselves unable to acknowledge and accept. Ernest Becker on the other hand states that this fear of death creates anxiety that is so intense it generates phobias in everyday life. This kind of phobias can be witnessed in being alone and confrontation of loneliness which results in confining oneself to a particular space. Thus this explains Miss Emily fears and inhibitions about life that is surrounded with loneliness. “……older people, who said that even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige- -“, this implies that Miss Emily with wealth and prestige and her association with Homer Barron proves to be used in the sense of condescending and hypocritical by society unfolding her relationship and responsibilities. Indeed it is sad for Miss Emily after her fathers death is interacting with humanity and trying to search and find that love and companionship she has always been longing for. Alas society always degrades and degenerates individuals in the manner they perceive them. “Arsenic," Miss Emily said. "Is that a good one?”, what a shock when one was beginning to accept this idea of relief and happiness for Miss Emily she speaks about arsenic! This calls for the reader to wake up and consider what Miss Emily really wants in life. A certain amount of confusion arises in trying to determine Miss Emily frame of mind. “We learned that Miss Emily had been to the jewelers and ordered a mans toilet set in silver, with the letters H. B. on each piece. Two days later we learned that she had bought a complete outfit of mens clothing, including a nightshirt…..” what a contrast and foreshadowing. The assumption that Miss Emily is married and the relief that finally she has received the life she always longed for. But assumptions and reality have always differed. For according to society and their norms not everyone receive the life they request for. But soon this silver toilet, the men outfit and pepper-and-salt iron-gray would form the crux in the life of Miss Emily. This kind of flashback and fore shadowing occurs throughout the story that utilizes time that produces the desired effect. Flashback is utilized to enhance action that has occurred before the beginning of the story and foreshadowing creates expectations for action that is yet to occur. At this point we find Miss Emily back to where she and we as the reader began, in her house behind closed doors. “Then we knew that this was to be expected too; as if that quality of her father which had thwarted her womans life so many times had been too virulent and too furious to die” by now society, the narrator and the reader is forced to accept this life for Miss Emily. Or should I say it is the other way around. Miss Emily refusing to accept her changes in her life forces society to accept her as she is and not to intrude in her life. Again Miss Emily interacts with the outside world by giving china painting lessons. I guess each time Miss Emily retreats from society, hibernates in her house and then interacts with society, this time through china paintings lessons, her ideals and perception of the outside world becomes more confusing and chaotic for her. Similarly “…the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town, and the painting pupils grew up and fell away and did not send their children to her….” Difference is society accepts modernization and change and moved on in life whereas Miss Emily refuses to accept and wants life to remain static. “….there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years….” The sense of mystery lurks wherein an illusion of reality is created. I guess this room will be the answer to society curiosities. “A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal….. upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the mans toilet things backed with tarnished silver………. The man himself lay in the bed”. At this moment we are still in the past for this past reveals all the answer to Miss Emily mysterious life. Mysterious yet so grotesquely shocking, now everything falls in place. The arsenic was for Homer Barron so that Miss Emily will have him close to her side forever. Imagine lovers tell each other things such as we will remain inseparable forever, my life is in your hands and Miss Emily did just that, and spent the remaining part her life beside him. I guess we need to pause for our own lives stand still on reading the end of Miss Emily. Though we read “The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.” We are still present in reality, in the present tense but the story ends in the past tense. How? For breaking open the door and entering the room that was like entering into the past life of Miss Emily: “Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.” Miss Emily is dead physically but her spirit and intuition will remain forever in that society and for the readers like us. Thus death being the central theme can be personified in several levels. Miss Emily’s dead relationship with the world, her father death leading her and trapping her into a world of unhappiness and anxiety followed by Homer Barron friendship with Emily leading to his death and finally her physical death. The action described is of the present leading one into the past and yet into the past again and suddenly brought back to the future and ending in the answer to the past. ‘A Rose for Miss Emily’ this irony reflects the tone of the story for perhaps if Miss Emily was really given a rose and was loved for who and what she was then maybe she would have been a profoundly lovable human being. References Inge, Thomas M. William Faulkner: A Rose for Emily. Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company. 1970. Blotner, Joseph. Faulkner: A Biography. Random House Inc. 1974. King Neil and King Sarah. Dictionary of Literature in English. Taylor and Francis. 2002. Claxton, Guy. Cognitive Psychology: New Directions. Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1980. Smail, John David. Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety. J.M.Dent. 1984. Phipps, William E. Death confronting the Reality. Macmillan Publishing Company. 1969. Read More