!8: Allens Boots Review: January 2012

Monday, January 2, 2012

A Reaction of "A Rose for Emily"

!±8± A Reaction of "A Rose for Emily"

William Faulkner's "a rose for Emily" is an absorbing mystery story whose chilling ending contains a gruesome surprise. When we discover, along with the narrator and townspeople, what was left of homer's body, we may be surprising or not, depending upon how carefully we have been reading the story and keeping track of details such as Emily Grierson's purchase of rat poison and Homer's body at the end of the story, because Faulkner carefully prepares the ground work of the discovery as the townspeople force their way into that mysterious upstairs room where a "thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere".

But every few readers, if any, are prepared for the story's final paragraph, when we realize that the strand of "iron-gray hair" on the second pillow indicates that Emily has slept with Homer since she murdered him. This last paragraph produces the real horror in the story and an extraordinary revelation about Emily's character.

The final paragraph seems like the right place to begin a discussion of this story because the surprise ending not only creates a powerful emotional effect on us but also raises an important question about what we are to think of Emily. Is this isolated, eccentric woman simply mad? All the circumstantial evidence indicates that she is a murderer and necrophilia, and yet Faulkner titles the story "A Rose for Emily", as if she is due some kind of tribute. The title somehow qualifies the gap of horror that the story leads up to in the final paragraph. Why would anyone offer this woman a "rose"? What's behind the title?

The reply of "Gwynn and Blotner" explains some of Emily's motivation for murdering homer but it doesn't actually address the purpose and meaning of the title. If Emily killed homer out of a kind of emotional necessity - out of a fear of abandonment - how does that explain the fact that the title seems to suggest that the story is a way of paying respect to Emily? The question remains.