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Contes Diana Alexandra Group 1, Year 3 Within the Southern Myth: William Faulkner Course Instructor: Anca Peiu

Identity and Mortality in A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

A short story published in 1930, A Rose for Emily is a truly representative of the Southern Gothic piece of work, within which the themes of identity and mortality coil around each other, influencing one another throughout the entire story. Miss Emily Grierson functions for the town as an idol, she is the only figure left which connects the town with its glorious past, she is a reminder of the antebellum tradition and culture. The relationship between townsfolk and Miss Emily is more or less symbiotic Miss Emily, completely devoid of adaptability within the new system, has her whims met, her beliefs accepted, and she can afford continuing with her life the same as before, tax-free and dignified, while the town distorts her entire being into a living relic. They are engrossed with her, staring at her windows and fervently gossiping about her, days on end. The townsfolk have had her unburdened of her humanity and completely transformed into an everlasting icon. Only through death does she finally gain her mortality and her humanity.

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When Homer Barron makes his appearance and the town sees this Northerner, a day laborer (Faulkner, 32) in the company of their Southern icon, they intervene presently. Because of her identity, Miss Emily stands no chance at living a romantically happy life or at being sexually fulfilled, lest she should ever fall from grace in front of her worshippers. They could not afford that Miss Grierson, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windowssort of tragic and serene (Faulkner, 122) be humiliated, or remain in the company of that undeserving Northerner. Miss Emily, steadfast and never giving up something she is determined to have, resolves at murdering Homer in order to spend her life with his corpse, in what she understands is a perfect union. It is important to mention the fact that she didnt want to give up her fathers body when he had died either, the great difficulty needed to adapt to a new, different situation configuring the very backbone of the story. Psychologically disturbed, she makes the determination to never be exposed to one such a change again. Murdering Homer Barron, he will never be able to leave her either because of dying or because of someone else; he will now always be with her, no matter what, and that is all that matters. The sinister of the situation is not limited to Miss Emily Grierson however. The townspeoples unquenchable thirst for gossip and the avid desire to dig up in her life are borderline grotesque too, seeing that they feed on the grotesque. All the watching they perform offers a hint of a prescient funeral wake they give in Miss Emily`s name. A deeply disturbed person, she is the victim of the story, a woman who has had a tragedy, an irrevocable tragedy and nothing could be done about it (...) ... a woman you would hand a rose (Faulkner).

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