SSRJ#1: Faulkner

 My initial personal reaction to Faulkners’ short story “A Rose for Emily” was that Emily was a sad soul who wanted nothing more than to find love but was repeatedly robbed from it, due to her father chasing every guy who had pursued her away.  The Griersons’ believed that they were of higher standards’ and no one was good enough for them. Therefore, Emily never really found love, instead she concocted a sick and twisted plot to poison and kill a man who did not feel romantically about her.  Homer Barron liked men.  Regardless of whom Homer fancied, Emily figured that he would make due and so she was not about to let him slip away; Like the rest of the men in her dark, pretentious, sad, and lonely life. The element of Emilys’ depression stood out like an eyesore.  She did not grasp life and explore the world.  Instead, she put herself through misery and wallowed in her squarish framed decaying house with the corpse of her father and Homers'.  Faulkners’ piece made me think about being happy and humble in life.  No one should hold their self to a higher standard as the Griersons did for someday they themselves may end up alone, depressed, and pitied.

Literary Element/Thematic Analysis: 

The theme that stood out in this piece was the tone. The Grierson family “held themselves a little too high for what they really were.” I feel that Faulkner wanted his readers to have a better understanding of who Emily Grierson was. She was oblivious to the outside world. She had always depended on her over protective father until he had passed. It was sad how she kept her fathers’ corpse for three days (being that he was the only person she had a relationship with) until finally breaking down and allowing an immediate burial. Faulkner set the tone with gothic imagery and the constant sympathetic snickers from the people in town who only saw Emily as a naive woman who demanded recognition and sought out love in the wrong people. In the end Emily kills Homer and emulates what her father had done to her.  Furthermore, it was strange how after the death of her father and Homer she felt the need to cling on to their bodies as they were the only people she had a connection with.  Her entire upbringing left her a demented view of how she thought things were supposed to be.

Questions/Comments: Why did Colonel Sartoris invent an involved tale to the effect that Mr. Grierson loaned money to the town?