Evil In Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

Improved Essays
Ghandi once said, “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” No matter where we are in the world or how much good we are surrounded with, there will always be someone or something evil lurking within. We start to distinguish between good and bad at an early age, mostly how we get this information is by watching t.v shows where there's a superhero and a villain. It all seems harmless and not real until you start growing up and seeing what the actual surroundings in your environment. The people you looked up to, the people you loved, the people who you actually called friend will always have some sort of evil layered over them. Like the quote above, people do remember …show more content…
The people in the same setting called her Miss Emily in her younger years as a sign of respect. She was a vibrant and hopeful young girl who had a home, money and basically everything she could ever ask for. All that was changed when her father passed away. In part two, it says, “After her father’s death she went out little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all.” This is when Emily started to go through some type of metamorphosis and not for the good reasons. Mr. Grierson was a very controlling man, figuratively over Emily, always chasing off her lovers because he himself wanted to pursue his dominance and control. Later on the people in her town started to “feel sorry for her, bringing up that one of her old relatives was insane, and even pointing out that none of the young men were good enough for her.” Near the end of part two it says that “being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized.” This is important because before she was called Miss Emily, which sounds more hierarchy and now that people see how far she has fallen, all they see is just a regular human being. As she continues to fall, the evilness inside her starts to get worse and worse. Killing a man she fell in love with just because he (Homer Barron) was for marriage. This made Emily angry, and she took this as if she …show more content…
T is fascinated with an old house that survived the Blitz during World War II. As you know, T convinces his gang to destroy the house with him while Old Misery is away. This evil in this is pretty self explanatory with T, but later he is confronted by Blackie. Blackie asks, “You hate him a lot?” T fires back with, “Of course I don’t hate him. There’d be no fun in that.” This right here to me is where evil collides with insanity. T’s intrusion on why he wants to destroy the house in unclear. But we can put it together by looking at T’s background. T used to be part of a high class family. His father was an architect who “came down in the world” to a clerk. The mother seems narcissistic, claiming herself to be “better than the neighbours,” which I’m guessing that’s where T got his negative traits from. It gets even worse when Old Misery shows up earlier than expected and finds T and his gang which soon ambushes and throws him into the lav (part 4). There is some kindness show when someone, presumably T, hands Old Misery some food for the night and they make their quick escape. Seem like a fake gesture, sugar coating the damaged situation, which is far from good. Even at the end the driver starts laughing at the carnage that is Old Misery's house, as he says, “There’s nothing personal, but you got to admit it’s funny.” So messed up in so many

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Do you have what it takes to kill the man you once loved? In the story “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner, Miss Emily shows signs of having a mental illness. Emily withdraws herself from society and becomes trapped in a world of delusions. By examining Miss Emily’s behavior and her social relationships, she can easily be diagnosed with being a sociopath.…

    • 235 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The narrator referred Emily as, Miss Emily. What they remember Emily is a young nice girl, but after her fathers death things changed. Then ends up turning into a old lady that poisons and kills Homer Barron. My attitude towards her are not that great. I understand life to get tough when you lose a family member, but the way she changed completely I don’t agree with it.…

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    That her father is described as being in the foreground and she in the background is also very informing of their relationship; they were not equals, he made the decisions and she merely followed them meekly; she did not chose to send away her suitors, he did. The imagery of a horsewhip in his hand is especially revealing; he was a very powerful, forceful man not to be contradicted. Because of the kind of man that her father was, Miss Emily was denied a life of her own, and this turned a just a bit crazy. When her…

    • 1875 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The problem with Emily In the passage “A rose for Emily” by William Faulkner the protagonist Emily Grierson who lived in the south where a person’s social class determined the expectations of a person’s behavior and how society viewed and treated them. Emily Grierson is an older woman who comes from a wealthy family but suffers from schizophrenia. “Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness characterized by incoherent, illogical thoughts, and bizarre behavior” (Kazdin 2000) Miss Emily goes through many obstacles and the town of Jefferson where she resided feels pity for her but Miss Emily still demands respect and dignity.…

    • 1210 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian independence movement leader, once said, “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” Gandhi explained the good that people think they are creating from violence only lasts for a temporarily, whereas the severe consequences caused by violence will always remain. This is an important quote to consider because it is true, as evidenced by World War I. During World War I, violence may have appeared to do good- many countries/individuals may have thought that they were one step closer to winning the war by using violence, but in reality, just like Germany, they probably were not even close to winning. They ended up killing millions of people and damaged…

    • 1306 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    We often focus more on the protagonist of stories, but what about the antagonist? Reading all three of the short stories Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates, A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor, and A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, they all expand the idea of the “bad guy.” The antagonists are the ones that truly develop the situation of stories, because without them there wouldn't be a conflict, or a story in general... At least not an interesting one to say the most.…

    • 869 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved 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

    In William Faulker’s “A Rose for Emily” and Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party” social class is the allegory. The protagonist in each, Emily Grierson and Laura Sheridan, were born into wealth and were aware of the social statues they possessed. Being part of the elite has advantages as well as disadvantages; financial security, unmerited respect, and privileges verse nativity, limitation of companions and high familial obligations. Social class dominates a large portion of their lives due to primarily negative expectations for the upper-middle class.…

    • 754 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Looking first at psychological criticism, Freud’s idea of the unconscious mind can be applied to better understand Emily’s character. Freud states that the conscious mind is not always aware of the unconscious mind; therefore, many times a person will have difficulties disguising between reality and what they think reality is at that moment. Readers see this clearly modeled with Emily Grierson. After the passing of…

    • 1325 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • 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

    Same as in “Psycho”, no one had entered Emily Grierson home for more than ten years. When she died the whole town had attended her funeral in her home. According to the town previous mayor, Emily father Mr. Grierson had owed the town a significant amount of money and after his death they tried to make Emily resume payments. When he had first died, she was abandoned by the man she thought she was going to marry. The town always believed that the Griersons thought too much to themselves.…

    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    In other words, an inherit obsession with sickness and death is obviously carefully placed throughout. In addition, because this is a southern gothic tale, it is somewhat concerned with antisocial behavior. This is usually due to the changing social morals and tradition. One could definitely characterize Emily as antisocial and somewhat oblivious to the town changing around her. One could say, she is in her own little bubble of sorrow.…

    • 1531 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A Rose for Emily: Victim or Villain Love can make people do crazy things. And in some cases people don’t know how to handle rejection physically or mentally. Its Affects them to a point where they can’t handle their thoughts and have to act out in aggressive ways. However many blame these deaths on Domestic violence or simply as an accident. In the story A Rose for Emily she kills her significant other Homer Barron and due to this a question rises, is Emily a villain or victim.…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The reader is first introduced to Emily after she dies. The entire town goes to her funeral, since she was a woman that had piqued their curiosity for many years. The reader soon learns that, as the last remaining member of a wealthy family, Emily tends to keep herself away from the common people in the town, much to their chagrin. Soon, a Yankee by the name of Homer Barron comes to town and sparks the interest of all the townspeople, most notably Emily, as evident in the fourth section of the story: “When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we had said, ‘She will marry him’” [Faulkner].…

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    She laid next to Homer’s dead corpse for many years and treated him as if he were still alive. Everyone has their own idea of love, but Emily’s is darker than…

    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays