Emily Grierson

Emily Grierson, generally referred to as Miss Emily, is the main character of the short story "A Rose for Emily", written by William Faulkner. Miss Emily is “a small, fat woman” who, before dying, lived within a modernizing town full of people who saw her as a very cold, very distant woman that lived in her past.^[1] The entire short story, this protagonist is referred to by her fellow townspeople only as “a tradition, a duty, and a care,” and is portrayed as a very mean, stubborn old woman; however, as her story unfolds, she is portrayed more as a sympathetic character whose whole story could never be fully understood.^[1]

Character

Miss Emily was a “hereditary obligation upon the town” in which she lived.^[1] She was a woman living in her past in a perpetually developing town. When this “next generation, with its more modern ideas” began to infest the town, they began to notice Miss Emily’s sense of tradition, which was almost a sense of pride and stubbornness.^[1] One instance of Miss Emily’s stubbornness is when she refuses to pay taxes to the new, modern government. “I have no taxes in Jefferson.” This thought of Miss Emily exemplifies this idea that she had in her mind that she was somehow still living in her past. Throughout Faulkner’s short story, Miss Emily is misunderstood by her fellow townspeople, and even by the reader. Speaking about her past and present, the reader finds that what they really thought about Miss Emily was very wrong.^[1] Miss Emily's physical appearance also displays Miss Emily's deeper character. One individual, Xie Qun, who studied how Faulkner painted Miss Emily's character in this short story found that Faulkner wanted to reveal Miss Emily's internal change using her external characteristics.^[2] Qun explains that Faulkner "enables the readers to watch how Emily transforms from a slender lady to an old gloomy "bloated" one, and from an obedient, genteel young girl to a murderer and corpse keeper".^[2] This change in Miss Emily that Faulkner displays is an important aspect of revealing her true character throughout the short story.

Miss Emily’s father

Miss Emily had a father who sought to stifle Emily with his rules, regulations, and demands. Many people in the town saw this stifling become evident, when Miss Emily was “thirty and… still single”.^[3] Everyone knew any possible suitor of Miss Emily’s would not be around for very long. The town “had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her clutching a horsewhip…”.^[3] It is clear that Miss Emily had a father who ruled every aspect of her life. However, it was also made clear that Miss Emily truly loved and cared for her father when he died. “The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house… as is… custom Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual… with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead” .^[3] Miss Emily proceeded to do this for three days until “she broke down, and they buried her father quickly”.^[3] This passion and love for her father is a sign of her need for him in her life. This loss had a deep impact on poor Miss Emily.

Emily Grierson's Home

Emily lives in Jefferson, Mississippi in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County. Her home "was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies…”.^[1] As the town began to modernize, “only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps- an eyesore among eyesores”.^[1] The house “smelled of dust and disuse—a close, dank smell”,^[1] and “was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture”.^[1] As the people in the community move around her house, “a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray”.^[1] The townspeople also complained of a mysterious odor coming from her house.

The tragedies of Miss Emily’s life

Many people found that when Miss Emily’s father died, “at last they could pity Miss Emily”.^[3] “Being left alone, and a pauper” Miss Emily was now completely alone in this new and quite foreign society.^[3] Miss Emily was found to be almost completely alone now because “all the young men her father had driven away…”.^[3] Miss Emily was without a father, and without a companion, and greatly feared being left alone. This is evident when she is not willing to let the city officials take her father’s body away from her. After overcoming the pain that resulted from the death of her father and the relinquishing of his body, Miss Emily eventually found hope in a prospective companion for her. Many people in the town believed that she would marry a man named Homer Barron who had just moved into their town.^[4] Then, with the disappearance of Barron, many people in the town believed that Homer had moved away. They no longer saw him anywhere. Then they knew Miss Emily would be alone again. Then, eventually, Miss Emily died without anyone she loved by her side. She “fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a doddering Negro man to wait on her”.^[5]

Miss Emily’s biggest secret

Along with the fact that Miss Emily never allowed anyone in her house except for specific, special occasions, at the end of this short story, readers see that she had quite a large secret that she had been keeping from her fellow community members.^[6] The town “knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced”,^[6] The members of the community must have regretted their decision to open this small, deserted room. “A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal…”^[6] The curious members of the community then found, “a collar and tie, as if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust”.^[6] In that room, the longest kept secret, and the biggest surprise was then found: “The man himself lay in the bed”.^[6] The greatest shock, however, did not come from this rotting body. This greatest shock came from what they saw next to this decaying corpse. The people in Miss Emily’s house “noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head”.^[6] After looking closely they then found “a long strand of iron-gray hair”.^[6] Miss Emily had loved this man, and loved having him in her life. In order to keep him permanently around, she bought poison from a “druggist”.^[6] Many of the people in the community assumed that this poison would be for Miss Emily to “kill herself”.^[5] The community then realized, after coming upon this secret of Miss Emily, that this poison was to keep Homer in Miss Emily’s life.^[6] One writer, Gary Kriewald, noted that Miss Emily's "strategic retreat into the sanctuary of her house after Homer Barron's 'desertion' of her is as defiant as it is self-protective, an act of passive resistance directed against a society...".^[7]

Views of Miss Emily in later years of study

One man, Du Fang, who studied Miss Emily found that Miss Emily’s murder of Homer “is not due to her blood-thirsty nature, rather it is the result of the southern society”.^[8] Fang believes that there were several causes for Miss Emily’s downfall. Fang believes that these are: “Patriarchal chauvinism,” “Puritan womanhood,” and “Conflict between community and individual”.^[8]

Patriarchal chauvinism

Fang states that, “Patriarchal chauvinism means that it is the father who enjoys the absolute power in deciding every family affair”. Fang observes that, “Emily is dominated by her father even after his death”.^[8] He attempts to explain that Emily is the way that she is because she was “strongly influenced by her despotic father” making her “eccentric and stubborn”.^[8] Emily’s “father’s absolute control has obstructed Emily’s way to understand the world”.^[8]

Puritan womanhood

Fang states “sex discrimination was particularly common in the South”.^[8] He observes, “women were condemned as the causes of all evil and troubles in the world…framed and judged by norms laid down by men”.^[8] This is another reason why Miss Emily found herself in the frame of mind that she was in. The men in her life never treated her the way that she needed to be treated. As Fang states about Emily,” She never has her own life, and never controls her fate”.^[8] Fang observes that Emily did not mean to hurt people or scorn people the way that she did. All Miss Emily needed was someone to care for her as all women did in her time.

Conflict between community and individual

Fang states, “when the two come into conflict, it surely will cause great confrontation and if the power of the community is strong enough, it often results in the destruction of the individual”.^[8] Readers see throughout the course of the story that the members of the community begrudgingly stay civil with Emily. None of the members of the community truly care for her. They look down on her and her traditional way of life. This creates this conflict for Emily in her life.^[8]

Miss Emily in film and music

Music

The Zombies wrote a song called “A Rose for Emily” that was on their album Odessey & Oracle. The lyrics in this song are their interpretation of Faulkner's story.

Film

In 1983, Lyndon Chubbuck directed the short film A Rose for Emily for PBS, starring Anjelica Huston as Miss Emily Grierson.^[9]

Notes

References

• Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. 
• Kirk, Robert W.; Klotz, Marvin (1965). Faulkner's People: A complete guide and index to the characters and fiction of William Faulkner. Los Angeles: University of California Press.