The Theme Of Death In A Rose For Emily By William Faulkner

Improved Essays
Death is inevitable; it is certainly true that on one is leaving this life alive. In “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner, death pervades throughout the story. Faulkner tells the life story of an elderly woman from the town of Jefferson. Emily Grierson, the story’s main character, had a very rough life filled with the death of loved ones, mental illness, loneliness, and her misconceptions of love; all of which left her feeling empty.
Throughout Emily Grierson’s life, her father kept her from most social contact and courtship. He would always comment that no one was good enough for his little girl. Because of her father, she does not have any friends and when he dies it is almost as if she has a mental breakdown. “Miss Emily met them at the
…show more content…
In the end, Emily gives into death as well. She attempts to overcome death by denying the fact that death exists or has happened. Emily has a strange relationship with the bodies of the men she has loved. After her father passes away her necrophilia becomes evident to all those around her. When her lover dies, she refuses to believe he is dead, even though she is the one who killed him. By murdering her lover, she believes she is able to keep him. However, in reality, she lost him forever, and he became permanently distant from her. The grey hair at the end of the story represents love and love lost. In all of Emily’s attempts to acquire love, she destroyed her chances of ever truly attaining it.
I believe that Emily Grierson should have had treatment for her mental illness. If the townspeople had not acted so ignorantly after her father’s death, they would have realized the signs and symptoms of her mental problems. If the people had shown more compassion to Emily, I believe her life would have had a better outcome. She desperately needed someone to guide and direct her in the right

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    After Emily’s father’s passing, she was left to inherit her childhood home. Nevertheless, she insisted that “her father was not dead”. For this reason, she would not allow his body removed until ministers and doctors trying to persuade her to give up the body. This indicates the beginning of the deterioration of her sanity. It also reveals Emily’s attachment to the controlling paternal figure whose manipulate and rule became the only form of emotional connection she ever was known.…

    • 1113 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Due to her inability to let the past go, isolated home, wicked appearance and dreary attire the town feels as if Emily is a burden to their newfound generation. Emily Grierson has a major problem with clinging to things. During the death of her…

    • 953 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Blooming in Winter A Rose for Emily’s use of metaphor and unique symbols fuse together to create a southern gothic tale of a murderous, abandoned, elderly woman who fears the unknown and seeks companionship. William Faulkner uses a unique literary device in which the narrator is the entire town rather than one person, Miss Emily is seen through gossip and rumours rather than her true nature. Faulkner uses this way of storytelling to create an interesting yet thought provoking short story.…

    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Emily was not acting out of twisted hate with her behavior, but rather she was acting out of desperation for love. After remembering the Emily’s past had with her father, the townspeople do not see her as “crazy” for living in denial of her father’s death days after his passing. The town’s people view her behavior as rational for her to not want to give up his body. We know they thought this because they stated “we did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that” (36).…

    • 1109 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the short story “ A Rose for Emily “ William Faulkner presents us with a very intriguing story that starts with the death of Miss Emily. The whole setup of the story is very intriguing and this is shown through Miss Emily’s character and the way she acts and what she does making her a round character . The way she is developed leaves the reader hanging on what her next step is, since little is known behind her reasons for her actions and it is left to the reader to interpret her actions. To begin with, she is a very reserved woman who has stayed inside her house for multiple years. To the people in the story and the reader, who know little of her she is a very intriguing person that holds many things to herself.…

    • 1663 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In this story we see her almost as a monument or a tradition, but at the same time she is empathized and consoled. The actuality that can be seen as someone reading the story from the outside, shows that she is often looked at as irritating in the ways that she demands to live her life on her own terms. Emily is the classic outcast, supervising and regulating the town’s access to her true identity by remaining hidden, which in the end is the reason she died alone and…

    • 1285 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Miss Emily Grierson presented herself as an old southern grand lady in face of the drastic change of time. She has attempted to keep the respectability of social class her father has earned. In fact, she was mentally fragile and does not want to face the reality. For so long, she kept herself from the outside world and has gradually formed twisted psyches. Her memory still lingered in the days of the past, when her father has kept the wide plantation.…

    • 244 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Emily Grierson Change

    • 452 Words
    • 2 Pages

    “A Rose for Emily,” written by William Faulkner, is a story that proves that a refusal to let go of the past and accept change can be self-destructive, and that rejecting the changing realities of life can lead to physical and mental anguish. During the story, the protagonist, Emily Grierson, is a static character and through her refusal to adapt to the changing social environment around her; she ultimately tears her life apart and in turn ends the life of another. Death is a main theme throughout the story and Faulkner shows through the way that Emily acts and tries to exert power over death by denying death as a whole. Emily is a necrophiliac, or a person who is attracted to dead people. Emily’s necrophilia first appears when her father dies, she refused to accept the fact that he was dead for a while and finally gave up his body, reluctantly.…

    • 452 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The opening of “A Rose for Emily” begins with not the life but the death of the main character, which I found interesting. Most stories began with the life of the protagonist and not the death. The opening of the story, as well as the figurative language that was used by the author to describe the town and the characters leads me to believe that this story wasn’t only about the life of Emily but rather the last generation of tradition that was dyeing with her. As everything around Emily’s house changes with time, her house doesn’t.…

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “A Rose for Emily” is a short story written by William Faulkner about a psychotic woman by the name of Emily Grierson. Emily appears to be greatly separated from the reality of life and proves to be depressed and lonely due to past life circumstances. After the death of her father and the series of unfortunate events she experiences throughout her life, Emily deals with her pain by residing in a world filled with sorrow and depression. Unfortunately, not being able to overcome her life circumstances, Emily becomes a murderer long in the making. Psychological criticism and formalism can be applied to this short story as Faulkner reveals the mystery behind Emily Grierson.…

    • 1325 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    In A Rose for Emily-What’s important about the gray hair? It states that “gray hair is sometimes seen as a sign of wisdom and respect.” This shows that the person lived his/her life and went up to living until they were old. In Sparknotes.com”The strand of hair is a reminder of love lost and the often perverse things people do in their pursuit of happiness.” The strand of hair is evidence that Miss Emily was sort of twisted into thinking that it was fine to sleep next to a dead…

    • 1508 Words
    • 7 Pages
    • 10 Works Cited
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Rose of Death The American author William Faulkner wrote the short story “A Rose for Emily,” to explain the struggle and resistance to change. “A Rose for Emily,” was William Faulkner’s most popular short story. This short story suggest that time has passed Emily, the main character, by and she will not accept the past. Change is inevitable in the future, and plays a major role in who people are today.…

    • 749 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After the passing of her father, Emily had a hard time letting go “and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead.” (Faulkner, 1931, 84). It seemed after his death, all of Emily’s lovers abandoned her. Emily was a grown woman but could not handle relationships like other normal women would have.…

    • 1500 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Miss Emily was represented as a lady who was portrayed as dysfunctional without a male figure in her life. She was so attached to a male’s love that she didn’t want to give up her father’s body. The desire to not be alone overwhelmed her inner body. In the text it states, “she told them that her father was not dead…she did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body” (Faulkner 160) . The loneliness she knew she would embody drove her to the complete edge.…

    • 1053 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    As Greg Iles once said, “Sothern Gothic is alive and well. It’s not just a genre, it is a way of life.” That very statement exudes throughout William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily.” Sothern Gothicism is often characterized by a near-obsession with the dark nature of humanity, sickness, and disease. It is defined as an originally European form by tradition that depicts a sense of moral decay and depravity of the region.…

    • 1531 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays