A Rose for Emily - Analaysis

Death: A Dear Friend

“A Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner, is a story describing the ways of Emily, a woman who is an extreme introvert. The story revolves around death and how eminent and powerful it is that it controlled the story from start until the end. Emily wanted to conquer death by denying the fact that the person is truly not dead, as seen when her father died and she didn’t want to accept that he is dead. She also tried to conquer death by killing Homer in the sense that she thought death would enable her to have full control over Homer. She was a fool to believe in such lunacy. But in the end, death became a dear friend to Emily. Death is her only companion and the only thing that approved of her in all ways.
The conflict present in the story is how Emily can’t stand not being in control because she already suffered enough under her father who kept her from participating in any social events that occurred. In this case, it is easy to say that Emily had internal problems that only she could fix. Her own solution to her problem was to kill the person that oppressed her and manipulated them to her will. Just like with his father after dying, Emily wanted to keep him for the sake of her finally having control over her father. Homer Barron, who disapproved that they marry because he is homosexual and prefers men over women, was killed by Emily for her to have Homer with her forever, without question and without hesitation.
Emily, the protagonist of the story, is a very self-centered person who only cares about herself and her feelings. She is mysterious, and greedy in the sense that she doesn’t want to pay her taxes that is for the benefit of her own town. Before her father died, she was the main subject of gossip of the town, somewhat like an idol that everyone wanted to meet and befriend. Finally, her father died and it changed Emily in horrible ways, becoming the shady character that she is. She still is the main gossip topic of the townspeople only because of the pity they feel for her lost and poor life outcome. Emily only wanted one thing: for her to find love and a companion where she is the one in control.
Emily is also a round character because at the start of the story, she was this shy and timid girl from an aristocratic family. And because she is from an aristocratic family, her father became overprotective and shielded her from the society making her a person with no feelings or love for other people. In the end, when the society discovers the trouble that Emily had gone through in the pursuit to keep her loved one close to her made the society think that she changed from an indifferent person to a person who cares and loves others to great extents. Meaning that she would kill, just for her to feel the happiness of being accompanied by someone she loves.
Emily is still sexually attracted to dead people just as she is to people who are alive, which in other term is necrophilia. There are various reasons for necrophilia that is found by conducting a research with “necrophiliacs”; some were motivated by a desire for an unresisting partner, some because they want a reunion with a lost partner, some because they have a desire for comfort or to overcome feelings of isolation, and some by a desire to remedy low self-esteem by expressing power over a corpse. Emily exhibited all of the reasons that are said. This in turn made Emily more and more inclined to be with dead people.
In the end, Emily still got her wish which is for her to have someone accompany her. Though the person that is accompanying her is dead, she still thinks of them as alive and full of emotions towards her.
Tobe, the servant or helper of Emily, is the only gateway of Emily to the public because only Tobe is the one that can be seen by others, going in and out of the house with a market basket. He is also the only one, aside from Colonel Sartoris, that took care of Emily after the passing away of her father. All the other characters in the story are the antagonists. Homer Barron, a foreman from the North, is an antagonist in a sense that he is in a contradiction with the want of Emily Grierson, which is for him to love, accompany and marry her. The townspeople always speak ill and/or degrade Emily to the point of her reputation turning bad. They also try to contradict the relationship of Emily and Homer and do all they can to try and break them apart. The biggest antagonist is Emily’s father, Mr. Grierson. Because he is overpowering Emily by not letting any suitors court Emily making her an isolated person in the society. When Mr. Grierson died, Emily finally got a glimpse of freedom and therefore she rebelled and abused it to the point of her murdering people for her own happiness.
The narrator appears to be one of the townspeople. This is clearly showed by him/her using the pronoun “we” when talking or gossiping about Emily. Though he is not part of the conversation that is made by the townspeople, he/she is the one who delivers the thoughts and views of the townspeople to the readers. He/she uses the third person point of view to get a more dramatic effect going on in the story because when using the third person point of view, the narrator is detached from the characters in the story making it full of suspense because the narrator doesn’t know the thoughts of the characters. Suspense is one of the best, if not the best, aspect in this story because it perfectly reinforced the mysterious and shady character of Emily Grierson, and also of Tobe, the helper of Emily. It is said that a rose symbolizes love. It seems that the author want to give free or desirable love to Emily. It is because Emily couldn’t find her true love yet, she couldn’t find someone willing to share with her their love and emotions. Ultimately this caused Emily to just kill the lover who conflicted with her to get his full unresisting love. The rose could also be a symbolization of a token than the townspeople would like to give Emily. Mostly the townspeople pity her because fate decides to give her the worst. And because of this, the townspeople would like to give her something, something for her to remember that she is not all alone in her big fight.