Character Analysis of Emily Grierson

The Character Analysis of Emily Grierson In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” the story is revolved around the character Emily Grierson. The story is told by the townspeople where Emily lives. These people are attending her funeral and pitching in memories and tales they remember from Emily’s life. It is through the collective voices and opinions of the crowd that the reader is able to interpret Emily’s struggles. With Emily Grierson’s choices the reader can tell that she is a dependant woman, with psychotic tendencies, and does not take the thought of change and rejection lightly. Emily is a very dependant woman who can’t take care of herself. She is so used to having her father around and to tend to her. At age thirty Emily is still not married and has to adapt to losing her father. “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. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly” (211). Here the story backs up that Emily doesn’t know how to adjust to her now lonely life and the death of her father. “After her father’s death she went out very little…” following the loss of her father she stays away from the public and locks herself in her house (210). Emily’s house ages just as well as she does. In the summer after her father’s death Emily meets Homer Barron and felt this was her last and final chance to marry. “It was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson; as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness” (212). Emily thought if she didn’t jump at this opportunity with Homer she’d be lonely the rest of her life. Emily seems to have psychotic tendencies because of her strange choices. “That was when people had begun to really feel sorry for her. People in our town, remembering how old lady Wyatt,