Grief and Denial: William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily - Research Paper

Introduction

William Faulkner underscores his choice for grief over nothing through his writing in A Rose for Emily encompassing the loneliness and selfishness of the poor woman Emily Grierson who suffers a great deal of denial for failure to grip death idea. She is expected by the town people to be in a state of grief following her father's death, but surprisingly, she is not and instead, insists that her father is well and alive with her (Oak). Through Miss Emily's journey, Faulkner's idea if grieving is vivid as he depicts to his audience, underlying the vitality of accepting death than ignoring it. That story takes place in the south a period characterized by racial discrimination coupled with political dynamics; therefore, the story's criticism, arguments, and analysis are based on the realms of secrets, race, gender underscored in the story's psychology and anthropology. A Rose for Emily is a representation of a possibility that the best compounds harbor exceedingly worst effects. Contrary to critics, Faulkner has an explicit usage of subtle and nuanced strategies of narratives in the quest to achieve a more encompassed psychological impact. The story's real argument can be underlined in the prospects of hidden messages found in the story, the hidden message conveyed in the aspects of death, and consequently change. The story, therefore, depicts the protagonist's struggles in the quest to maintain the traditional elements of radical change.

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Discussion

The story jeopardizes a looming death from its beginning to the end as the narrator begins the story by giving s vivid description of Emily's funeral. Her father's death, the death of a police officer, the killing of her fiance Homer, and finally, her flashback death is brought to reality at the end of the story. She, however, chooses not to accept death fate even when her controlling father dies "...Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father is not dead..." (Faulkner).Born in an elite Grierson family and the remaining Jefferson aristocracy emblems an American country outlook in that era, albeit the uniqueness of the place and the people in their way (Melczarek, 237). The reader questions Emily's mental condition as the obscurity of her mysterious life unravels through the vital elements like customs, traditions, coupled with the beautifully constructed values. She is a representation of legend, who, albeit the societal dynamics, remains the same over the years. Similarly, her image reflects tradition, commanding respect and honor from the people, albeit a burden evidenced by her detachment from the outside world, the isolation that confers trait that even the townspeople are yet to understand.

Emily lives in her world, dictating her timeless vacuum. The townspeople are familiar with mail services while Emily abhors the fixation of metallic numbers in her door side and resolves to remain a loaf of the outside world throughout the story, coupled with the obliviousness of the happenings beyond her secured perimeters. That is evidenced when she is not even aware of Colonel's death for years when the aldermen attempt breaking the informal agreements made between her and Colonel Sartoris (Melczarek,236). Jefferson is willingly embracing the modern, although he has high regard from the legendary reputation and honor notions. The traditional men gathered at Emily's funeral with their Confederate Uniforms are highly criticized. The past is not a faint glimmer in this story, save for Emily, who perceives it as an ever-present realm and has a well-constructed macabre bridal chamber as she attempts to stop time and prevent change, even if it means killing someone.

How the Story Was Viewed in Those Times

The story is based in Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha's government center in Mississippi and Emily's birth is almost at a period of the American Civil War, and the events in the book happen after the civil war during the period of reconstruction. Faulkner uses the book as a reflection of the deterioration of the old south. He uses Emily to symbolize he Southern views on restoration as depicted in the way she was respected and admired coupled with imagery as a contrast to her youth and downfall, a vivid exemplification of modernization's effects on the south. A fallen monument in Emily's funeral that was graced by men from all walks of life is a representation of the societal topping regime. "...the men came through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument (Faulkner,1). Emily's image in that manner depicts Emily's representation of a community during the past times, and her respect and admiration are viewed in the realms of overlooking her flawed past coupled with the negative values of the south. The White folks at her funeral are a remembrance of the pre-civil war that underlined the American South as a place of idyllic.

Emily's fall from grace is depicted as the effects of the loss Emily's generation underwent when losing their traditional southern identity. Her description as a "figure in white," pure, ignorant image and saintly coupled with her white house elucidates the Beautiful Southern reflection of Architecture(Faulkner, 2). She is viewed as a harmonious society in those times through her exemplification of Southern Belle from a wealthy family.And,just like the Southern power, she is untouchable as admitted by the townspeople..."that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were..."(Faulkner,2).Perhaps it is that her notion of coming from a different time that made people give her a pass, viewed with respect, revered as an icon of the past, albeit her health gradually deteriorates in her final years. The narrator asserts,"...she become a small, fat woman in black...her skeleton was small and spare...she looked bloated, like a body submerged in stagnant water..."(Faulkner,1).

Psychological Arguments of the Story

Emily's mental disorder, as illustrated in Sigmund Feud's psychoanalysis, depicts that it stemmed from her unnatural attachments with her father. Her father, known for his domineering nature, coupled with his least highly traditional values, rejects all suitors that inquire about Emily. After her father's death does not demean her and instead keeps his body for three days, on denial of his death. Whatever she does with the body, however, her later interactions with Homen's corpse provide a slight clue. Failure to mention her mother in the story infers her likelihood of absence in Emily's life, or maybe she died in Emily's earlier life. Either way, Emily is likely to have experienced the Electra complex, which involves her rivalry with her mother for her father's sexual attention, according to Feud's psychoanalysis(Smith). However, it may be arguably portrayed that she had no female figure to identify with, thus informing her failure to mature past the stage where she desires her father.

When examined in a psychological and contextualized through her quirky and erratic behavior, Emily becomes overnight bizzare. The townspeople and the reader are left wondering how Emily could spend many years sleeping with Homer Barron's corpse. The townspeople at first "...did not say that she was crazy... "(Faulkner, 2162), nonetheless, she was never examined, evaluated, diagnosed, or treated by any mental professional. Throughout the story, Emily's psychological behavior underscored the possibility of mental illness, in spite of the townspeople's denial of this fact and leaving her intact as a social idol. Maybe this behavior could be arguably discussed in the realm of Schizophrenia as characteristics of Emily's illness, as defined by the American Psychiatrist Association. Perhaps it was the demanding conditions as a Southern woman from an Aristocratic family that geared her development of mental illness. Her decomposition was informed by her inability to develop healthy and defense mechanisms for adaptive coping. Like anybody else, the kind of stressors faced by Emily, it is next to impossible for one to fail to develop such symptoms of psychotics in response to their situations, especially to those people who cannot handle such kind of jobs.

The incidents involving her father underscore particular pressures that Emily was trying to cope with, couple with the notion that she was coming from a family with high statue and wealth in a small Southern community. Emily was, therefore, burdened with the people's high expectations of her. She was stemming from her community's views of her as having ..." hereditary obligations" (Faulkner, 2160) to maintain the traditions that had been established in the earlier generations before her. Her father, obliged at instilling her traditions, failed through his rigidity in reinforcing the expectations on her. The father was depicted to have "...thwarted her woman's life so many times..." (Faulkner,2164).That is exemplified through hos driving of all Emily's suitors away, citing that they never deemed fit for her, thus resulting in Emily's failure to get married.

Her inability to demonstrate emotion after the death of her father is congruent with Schizophrenia's classic symptoms in psychology. That might also invoke a reason for her adamancy to believe her father's death, telling her visitors, "...her father was not dead..." (Faulkner2162) And her consequent refusal to have the body removed until she "broke down," making the townspeople remove the body in the quest of fearing her protest (Faulkner, 2162). Her Advanced psychosis is depicted when she withdraws from society and refusing to receive callers and the townspeople who visit her. The advanced psychosis is also illustrated through her failure to attend to her appearance coupled with hygiene and grooming, a notion demonstrated by psychologists as tasks of daily living and deficiency in occupational functioning.

Literal Arguments of the Story

The story A Rose for Emily represents a Gothic tragedies horror presented in a portrait of a Mississippi woman who is lonely and subsequently succumbing to mental illness in her reclusive life in an outmoded Aristocratic old tradition of the South (Smith). Emily is presented as the protagonist of the story who encounters her father's manipulation resulting in her failure to function in the modern world. Worse, still, she isolates herself from the rest of the society, lives in a reclusive, and becomes insane eventually. Her companion, who later abandons her fuels her insanity as he kills him in the quest of maintaining his hold on him and keeps his corpse in her house. Her situation invokes pity, especially from the readers who, in solace's sake, would hand her a rose.

The story I primarily focused on Emily's life and death, a monumental figure representing her Southern traditions in Jefferson, her hometown in Mississippi (Hunter). The story, albeit beginning with her death, her life details are revealed through the narrator's flashbacks. Upon her father's death, disorientation, and confusion occur her, making her deny her father's death. To the shock of the town's people, she refuses to permit anyone to bury her father. She is later on "jilted" by Homer, an overpowering Northern contractor, the man with whom she had fallen in love. She is determined to be within spite of the man's refusal to marry her and is willing to go at any lengths to ensure a lifelong commitment with Homer. It is of little wonder she poisons him and stays with his corpse in the upper room of her house.

Emily is affected by circumstances of her unbearing and overprotective father, and her home is described as "...an eyesore among eyesores...lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay..." (Faulkner.243) Meaning that the house was viewed in the emblems above the modernized town in which it existed.