Southern Patriarchy

William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, is the story of a young woman, Emily Grierson, who is a member of the last aristocratic family in the town of Jefferson and a pillar of the community. After her father dies, Emily meets Homer Barron and after learning he will leave her she poisons him. At the end of the story, the townspeople discover his body in a room in Emily’s house after she has died. In this essay feminist theories like the southern patriarchy and her father’s control over Emily will be applied to explain how it contributed to Emily’s bizarre personality and the eventual murder of Homer Barron.
The feminist theory can be shown through Emily’s dependence on her father both economically and psychologically in every aspect of her life
The definition of patriarchy that applies here is a “system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women” (Sultana 2). Faulkner uses Emily as a way to represent the resistance that the South had to undergo when they had lost the Civil War. The South struggled to maintain tradition in the face of change brought on by the North. Emily’s hometown Jefferson is at a meeting point between a modern future and the past which is represented by the Grierson house and cemetery where Civil War soldiers lay. Emily herself is “a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town.”, but also seen as an eccentric outsider who is a burden to change (Faulkner 91). Emily’s resistance to change can be seen when she refuses to pay taxes since she is absolved of them by Colonel Sartoris, refusing to put metallic numbers to her house when the town gets a new mailing system and keeping her father’s body for three days. Emily’s resistance to change and need for a man eventually led her to make the decision to kill Homer
Donaldson, Making a spectacle: Welty, Faulkner, and Southern Gothic, explores the psychological reasons behind Emily’s necrophilia. One of the theories is “Faulkner’s beating fantasy” which he portrays though Emily’s necrophilia (3). This can be seen through his female characters which portray beaten, suffering, and bound woman. Donaldson believes that Emily has an underlying desire to sleep with her father or father-like figure which connects to Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex. The reader knows how Emily was dominated by her father most of her life and when he died she couldn’t bear to be separated from his body. Emily’s obsession to cling onto the only paternal figure in her life even when he was controlling and strict towards her shows how this is the only form of love Emily has ever known. Emily sought a replacement for her father because she was not taught how to be independent and needed a man to take over and take care of her. When Homer Barron, a potential replacement for her father, tries to leave her she poison him and sleeps with his corpse. Donaldson also believes that the view of the town’s people contributed to Emily’s introverted nature. Donaldson believed the isolation is what caused Emily to go into the depths of despair and loneliness