essay #2 A Rose for Emily

The Life You Live

In “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner presented the readers an opportunity to peek in the life of a high society family name Grierson. They carried themselves as if they were better than most people, especially the people in their town. They were a family that lived a privileged life. The Grierson had a daughter by the name of Emily. She lived a sheltered life. Her father seems to have made, if not, all her decisions the majority of the time. As Miss Emily blossomed from a child to an adult, her father somewhere in his twisted selfish mind robbed her of her life. I could not imagine what Mr. Grierson was thinking. Hmmmm he must have thought Miss Emily was never going to age. He must have forgotten about the Mental Illness that’s in their D.N.A. He must have even forgotten he may leave this world before poor Miss Emily. While being selfish thinking he was doing Miss Emily justice by depriving her from her own personal life, he literally destroyed her chances of every girl’s dream to grow up, find love, get married and to have a family. As life would run its course Miss Emily lost her father. Now all she was left with was the run down house which was parallel to her deteriorating body.
Miss Emily, being up in age now, owned the giant house that was once a big squarish frame, white, and decorated with cupolas, spires and scrolled balconies in heavily lightsome style of the seventies. The house once sat on what had once been the most selected street (526). The house was well put together, beautiful landscaping with a large well kept yard. It would make a sad person smile. It had beautiful doors, fireplaces and up and downstairs. It was described as breath taking. One could only imagine what the inside was like. Over the years the house had started deteriorating. The house was no longer white it has lost its color due to the hot summers and cold winters and every other element that attached to it. Now garages and cotton gins had encroached the house (526). The yard no longer manicured as it use to be. The doors had gotten old and dry rotten. Wear and tear has really did this house a sore unjust. The pipes were rotten paint is peeling this is an eyesore.
Not only has the house fallen apart, Miss Emily is also depreciating. She has gone from once being a slender and gorgeous bright eyed young intelligent lady to an old fat puffy eyed, gray haired woman. Her body frame was never that big. Now with all that extra weight, Miss. Emily looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that palled hue (527). Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough. The town knew that she was sick but no one could believe how time had robbed poor Ms. Emily of her essence. It was as if the town was baffled of how she looked. Some of the town people really started feeling sorry for Miss Emily. But not everyone, remember Miss Emily always thought she was above the people in her community. Some of the people were elated that Miss Emily has finally become humanized. At last they could pity Miss Emily (528). Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less (528).
It is amazing that Miss Emily and her home would depreciate at the same time. One could assume by not having the finances she grew up with that it was hard managing the upkeep of the spacious house. Her father had passed away. He was the one who always took care of the maintenance of the house. Miss Emily still had the Negro servant Toby. However, he is up in age himself. He is limited to what he can do for her and without money she could not hire new staff. Let us not forget Miss Emily’s father had deprived her of a normal life so there were not too many people willing to help her. Miss Emily’s father thought there was not a man good enough for her. Now she is old and alone and had clearly lost her mind. Because of Miss Emily’s power and prestige, she was allowed to get away with unlawful things. Maybe if the druggist, and Judge Stevens and the rest of the town who put Ms. Emily first would have treated Miss Emily the way they treated everyone else and not as if she owned the town or had so much power and privilege then just maybe Homer Barron would still be living. Maybe they would have realized that she was losing her mind just as her aunt did. However there is something we need to remember, there are still a lot of Miss Emily’s on this earth.











Work Cited
Faulkner, William “A Rose for Emily.” Literature the Human Experience. Richard Abcarian
And Marvin Klotz Massachusetts: Bedford/St. Martins 2007. 526-533