The Role Of Behavior In William Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

It is interesting to know what makes people act the way they do and the reason why they do it. Behavior arises from personal emotional states and what causes each to feel a certain way followed by the reaction to it. This is a question many psychologists seek to answer. In the story “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner narrates the lifetime of a woman named Emily Grierson, who lived in Jefferson, Mississippi, in the 1930’s. She was a respected woman who seemed to live a great life; however the image of her great life wasn’t only but a deception of what really lay within her attitudes. Specifically two of the situations described by Falkner prove that Emily suffered from mental disabilities, which unfortunately were never evaluated, diagnosed, …show more content…
After reading the short story and analizing Emilys character it is clear she had serious problems and they were all caused by the deaths of her relatives. After her father died, she rejected the fact that he had gone forever, after that happened her first sweetheart also died. When she lost both of these important figures she started acting in a bad way. One of the points, which will be discussed, is the way she killed Homer Baron. She, her lover the man who she thought she would marry as she was completely in love with him, despite the fact he did not like women, he was attracted to men. This was the reason she went to the drug store and decided to buy Rat poison too intoxicates him. This statement is shown when it says, “”I want some poison," she said to the druggist.” "Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I 'd recom". "I want the best you have. I don 't care what kind." By using these lines I can prove the strong desire Emily had to buy the poison, which will not fail to kill Mr. Barron. We can add up and analyze the reasons, and these could be because she wanted to feel power over him as she was so in love but he didn’t feel the same way. She only wanted for him to be hers forever unfortunately this couldn’t happen if Mr. Barron was still alive. After buying the poison Miss Emily and Barron departed to a trip together in order to …show more content…
Falkner describes it this way “For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace” according the wordreference.com embrace means “to clasp in the arms; hug” which clearly states that she spent many time next to him hugging him, and sleeping with it. Another reason, which proves Emily was present, was when it says, “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.” There was evidence presented in the story that restates the romance and time Ms. Emily had with Homer Barrons dead