If I Can’t Have You, No One Can: Isolation and Control in “A Rose For Emily” and “The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off”
Humans are social creatures, requiring interaction from others to thrive. So when a person is shoved to the edge of society, ridiculed, and ill-fated in love, they may think that violence is their only option to regain the power that has been stripped away from them. Both “A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner and “The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off” by Raymond Carver explore what it means to be alienated from one’s community and scrabbling for control.
Emily Grierson in “A Rose for Emily” is both a public spectacle and an outcast in her hometown of Jefferson. The story’s narrative point of view is a collective …show more content…
Dummy is not even dignified with a proper name like the rest of the characters in “The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off”, instead he is merely referred to by a derogatory nickname, highlighting his role as an outsider. He lives “near the river, five or six miles out of town” (74), physically isolated by location, similar to Emily. While Dummy does have one friend named Del, it is unclear whether Del truly views him as an equal. Del doesn’t outright bully him, but he still talks about Dummy behind his back like the rest of the town, and suggests Dummy fill his backyard pond with bass out of a selfish desire to fish there himself. The bass become a hyperfixation for Dummy - unlike the rest of his life which lies beyond the reach of his control, the bass he has full sovereignty over. By building an electric fence around the fish pond, Dummy assists in his own physical alienation from others, as he creates a harsh barrier to keep out the rest of the world. From the beginning, Dummy displays protectiveness when it comes to his fish, barring Del from helping him unload them from their barrels and ripping his hand open in the …show more content…
His wife is known to be a flirt, going on dates with other men and breaking the monogamy of their marriage. Although Dummy is aware of this, he doesn’t do anything to halt her behaviour, perhaps out of a feeling of helplessness, and uses the fish as a means to exercise the control he lacks over his own life’s circumstances. When Dummy spends his life savings on building an electric fence around his fish pond to keep out poachers, Syd Glover, the towns millwright, remarks that “he’d do better to put that fence round his house” (75) to keep his wife from cheating. Dummy also grows anxious when Del and his son come to the pond to fish, insisting on only one fishing line be in the water at a time, paralleling the anxiety he feels over his wife’s unfaithfulness. The fish pond absorbs Dummy’s mind to the point that when the nearby rivers flood the next February and sweep his fish away, he’s thrown into despair. The loss of his fish symbolizes the loss of the last aspect his life he had control over, and in reaction to this nadir he has sunken to, Dummy’s mind snaps. The mounting pressure of being relentlessly picked on by his peers, being powerless against his wife’s cheating, and losing his bass weighs down on Dummy fatally, and he bashes his wife’s head in with a hammer before drowning himself to escape the world that seems to exist only to knock him
Humans are social creatures, requiring interaction from others to thrive. So when a person is shoved to the edge of society, ridiculed, and ill-fated in love, they may think that violence is their only option to regain the power that has been stripped away from them. Both “A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner and “The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off” by Raymond Carver explore what it means to be alienated from one’s community and scrabbling for control.
Emily Grierson in “A Rose for Emily” is both a public spectacle and an outcast in her hometown of Jefferson. The story’s narrative point of view is a collective …show more content…
Dummy is not even dignified with a proper name like the rest of the characters in “The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off”, instead he is merely referred to by a derogatory nickname, highlighting his role as an outsider. He lives “near the river, five or six miles out of town” (74), physically isolated by location, similar to Emily. While Dummy does have one friend named Del, it is unclear whether Del truly views him as an equal. Del doesn’t outright bully him, but he still talks about Dummy behind his back like the rest of the town, and suggests Dummy fill his backyard pond with bass out of a selfish desire to fish there himself. The bass become a hyperfixation for Dummy - unlike the rest of his life which lies beyond the reach of his control, the bass he has full sovereignty over. By building an electric fence around the fish pond, Dummy assists in his own physical alienation from others, as he creates a harsh barrier to keep out the rest of the world. From the beginning, Dummy displays protectiveness when it comes to his fish, barring Del from helping him unload them from their barrels and ripping his hand open in the …show more content…
His wife is known to be a flirt, going on dates with other men and breaking the monogamy of their marriage. Although Dummy is aware of this, he doesn’t do anything to halt her behaviour, perhaps out of a feeling of helplessness, and uses the fish as a means to exercise the control he lacks over his own life’s circumstances. When Dummy spends his life savings on building an electric fence around his fish pond to keep out poachers, Syd Glover, the towns millwright, remarks that “he’d do better to put that fence round his house” (75) to keep his wife from cheating. Dummy also grows anxious when Del and his son come to the pond to fish, insisting on only one fishing line be in the water at a time, paralleling the anxiety he feels over his wife’s unfaithfulness. The fish pond absorbs Dummy’s mind to the point that when the nearby rivers flood the next February and sweep his fish away, he’s thrown into despair. The loss of his fish symbolizes the loss of the last aspect his life he had control over, and in reaction to this nadir he has sunken to, Dummy’s mind snaps. The mounting pressure of being relentlessly picked on by his peers, being powerless against his wife’s cheating, and losing his bass weighs down on Dummy fatally, and he bashes his wife’s head in with a hammer before drowning himself to escape the world that seems to exist only to knock him