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?
Demond Richardson
ReplyDeleteI believe he came up with this story because he still believed in old traditions, and saw the Grierson as a symbol of the once powerful south, (A momentum as was said in the first line) that needed to be preserved as a reminder of past glory.
That is interesting. I did not catch the fact that it was made up. I read this story a few times to. Well, Colonel Sartoris may have invented an involved tale to the effect that Mr. Grierson loaned money to the town possibly to spare Emily herself. I believe Demond does have a point with Sartoris trying to preserve acts of the past because it does state before all this that Sartoris was the one who "fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron" on page 91 in the 9th edition. That shows that his generation still believed in class order and had respect for Emily's father. Due to that respect, I believe the loss of her father had an effect on the colonel's decision to make up the tale. He was trying to spare Emily from dealing with the new generation and their beliefs. In doing so, in my opinion, he also had played a role in preventing her from understanding the world as it changed throughout generations.
ReplyDeleteI sense the story was over dramatized. It would have been more interesting if the author sprinkled few smiles on emily's character.
ReplyDeleteHi
ReplyDeleteI agree that Emily’s upbringing left her demented. It is very strange how after the death of the two men she loved that she felt the need to cling to their bodies since I think she never felt connection or love until she can control them which is when they were dead. To answer your question about Colonel Sartoris saying that her father loaned money to the town, I think he had ties with the father and had asked him to protect her as she is too naïve to learn about the finances that her father took care of.