Death and Isolation in A Rose for Emily

Death and isolation from the society is a factor that can cause lifetime loneliness. A rose for Emily was the author’s first story to be published on a national forum. A Rose for Emily, the short story by William Faulkner was first printed in 1930. The story takes place in Jefferson, a fictional city in Mississippi. Faulkner’s description of a rose for Emily gives an allegorical title to a woman that had gone through a great tragedy. The author suggests that grief and isolation can make individuals do despicable acts. The essay will, therefore, analyze the themes of death and isolation in a rose for Emily as conveyed by William Faulkner, by describing its literal and figurative depiction through characters, setting, and imagery.

Character   

Throughout A Rose for Emily, William Faulkner carries the central idea of social isolation from the society. Through Emily’s character, Faulkner shows how people go through physical and emotional separation from and by their family, community and their actions. Miss Emily’s is likened to that of an idol, which suggests that she was brought up to think she was better than the rest of the community, and since the rest were already used to seeing her that way, she was permanently cut off from the city  (Harris 169) . Besides, miss Emily isolated herself by deciding to stay in a community she could not fit, thus did not at any time live in harmony with other people. Even in her death at seventy-four, the character was still isolated. Individuals rushed into her home not to give their last respect but to see what was hidden in the mystic house.

The theme of death also revolves around the tragic life of the aristocrat miss Emily Grierson, a lady that is subject to the town’s obsession. The idea is very crucial since the author starts and ends the story with the death of Miss Emily. The death of Mr. Grierson and the death of her lover turns Miss Emily insane. Her insanity drives her to want to cling to her father’s dead body by refusing his burial until the law intervenes. Besides, Emily’s mental stability is questionable for her killing and keeping the remains of her lover in the house for years. Moreover, the death of the character portrayed the death or decay of aristocracy which mentally and physically torments the main character. The narrator mentions that “when Miss Emily Grierson died, the whole town went to her funeral, men to show their respectful affection to the fallen monument” (Faulkner 1). By linking her to a monument, Emily symbolizes death. Most people associate tributes to fallen heroes when they see monuments. Emily, therefore, reinforces the theme of death. Thus a reminder that all things fall apart just like monuments crumble and societies falter, the townspeople will also die just like her.

Faulkner has also used Homer Barron as bait to death and isolation. Miss Emily hooks up with the Yankee day labor that came to Jefferson with a construction company hoping that he would love her in return. Homer and Emily make out in a flashy yellow car, gets expensive gifts from Emily such as silver toilet set and a nightshirt (Dilworth 251). Through the character, Emily gains attention and respect of the people as she thought they would soon marry. However, the homer was not a marrying man. He was gay, and a person who went to the bar all night with younger men. Therefore, while Emily saw him as a source of comfort and filling the gap that his father left when she learned about this Emily thought that homer would attract more sympathy from the people. She knew that she would not have him for long, and hence killed homer to have him forever by her side in death, which he could not do in life.

Setting

Setting refers to place and time which gives more than an insight into the action of a story. Faulkner incorporates this device in the complicated story a rose for Emily describes the isolation and loneliness of Miss Emily Grierson. The setting revolves around the townsmen and Emily in a southern street in Jefferson in early 1900. The town gives more than the story’s setting as through its very own characterization, and that of Miss Emily, a reader gets to know the reason behind Emily’s solitude, attitudes, and actions. The setting in one which gives men authority over women. The narrator describes Emily as a slim woman on a white background while Mr. Grierson is a straddled silhouette on the foreground who clutches her with a whip. Until her death, Emily is unable to mingle or date. Faulkner, therefore, creates a setting whereby Emily’s continual to rely on a female figure brings her into a desperate situation that leads her to date homer a gay man with hopes he will eventually marry her (Getty 230). The setting further leads her to killing homer, not because of the hatred she has for men but because she believes a man has a specific role to play in her life.

A Rose for Emily

also presents a setting of a sophisticated and strict community. Emily turns reclusive and introverted after her father’s death and the estrangement from Homer Barron the Yankee. William Faulkner reveals at the end of the story that Emily goes to the extent of poisoning homer and clinging to his dead body in the house and sleeping next to it. All this is done in the attempt to deal with pressure bestowed on her by the town, the struggle to maintaining the dignified place of an aristocratic southern woman. The denial of not accepting the changes around her life and changing with them. The tendency of clinging to the past is the norm of the time and place which is visible in the town’s adherence to traditions, old beliefs, and thoughts (Harris 170). For instance, the custom of helping a bereaved is shown after the demise of Emily’s father. ”The day following his death all the women called the house to offer their help and condolence as it is our custom” (Faulkner 1). Therefore, it is this setting of the town that has taught Emily to cling to the dead, which is the only thing she has left in her life, and also to isolate herself from the community since she cannot fulfill the community’s demands of an aristocrat.

Imagery

A Rose of Emily

revolves around Miss Emily the main character who hails from a wealthy family, which by the time of the story has lost its fortune. Through the excellent use of visual imagery, Faulkner highlights Emily’s life. Imagery also sets the pace for the death theme where Emily refuses to have her father buried for three days. After this, Emily gets sick and locks herself up at home, and the next time she is seen she had changed her looks. ”She cut her hair short which made her look younger, and gave a resemblance to angels in colored church windows” (Faulkner 97). The change in her appearance shows the longing of the dead father because of the close attachment she had developed towards him, as a result for the loneliness, Emily felt as she was now alone in an isolated mystic building thus having no one to whom she could confide.

Faulkner has used various images to portray the theme of death and isolation such as the function of the house, the picture of Emily, the service of the town, and characterization of men in Emily’s life. The purpose of the house, for instance, the role of the house is characterizing Miss Emily through the description of her life and external appearance. At first Emily’s image is portrayed as that of a fallen monument, a pride of the southern aristocracy through the large house that represents the town’s old values and customs (Getty 233). The image of Emily and the house are described as monuments that have lived in the present. However, all that comes to an end. The once white and squares frame house decorated with cupolas is now filled with dust, and encroached with garages and cotton gins. It signifies the death of Emily’s high held status and that of the southern aristocracy. The interior of the house is also neglected, therefore showing the inner image of Emily. When the aldermen visit, the house is dim and shadowy with cracked furniture and also is filled with dust. The imagination of dust possibly is a sign of death. Besides, just like the house stands out in the modern surrounding, Emily is also alone and displaced in the changed society due to the denial of change and modernity, and hence the two are in loneliness and isolation from everyone else.

Faulkner has also selectively used imagery to portray the image drawn of Emily. In her life, the character was a tradition, a responsibility and a hereditary obligation of the region. She is closely associated with wealth and treasure in the city. Thus she lived a public life. After her demise all these turs into a story and a mystery.  William Faulkner conveys the themes of death and isolation which is omnipresent both literally and figuratively through his characters, setting, and imagery. When Emily goes to buy the arson, the image drawn is that of a slight woman who is thinner like before, cold, haughty eyes on a face of skin stretched across temples and eye sockets that look like those of a lighthouse-keeper. Apparently, both Emily and her light-house keeper lived a solitary life as they refused to engage with the town, and look down upon all people below them (Gale Cengage learning 32). Her description creates an image of an almost dead person out of her misery and isolation. Her death, therefore, has been used to indicate the end of separation of herself from the town and the city towards her. Miss Emily’s death also is an indication of the death of the town’s only treasure and responsibility, and that of the legendary southern aristocracy.

In conclusion, themes in A Rose for Emily revolve around the life and environment of one character, Miss Emily Grierson. She hails from the lineage of a deep-rooted community which is all gone, and she is the only one standing. Her death shows merely the collapse of the single monument that represented aristocracy. She is a person whose freedom is controlled by her father, movements watched by the town, thus having limited contact with the world. Her being forced to seclusion primarily contributed to the isolation from life and interaction.

Works Cited

Dilworth, Thomas. ”A romance to kill for: homicidal complicity in Faulkner’s“A Rose for Emily”.“Studies in Short Fiction 36.3 (2009): 251.

Faulkner, William, and Noel Polk. A rose for Emily. Harcourt College Publishers, 2000. Pp. 97.

Gale, Cengage Learning. A Study Guide for William Faulkner’s”Rose for Emily“. Gale, Cengage Learning, 2016. 32-43.

Getty, Laura J. ”Faulkner’s a Rose for Emily.“The Explicator 63.4 (2005): 230-234.

Harris, A. ”In Search of Dead Time: Faulkner’s“A Rose for Emily”.“KronoScope 7.2 (2007): 169-183.