Summary:
I believe one of the two main themes of the story are that people may resort to desperate measures to prevent being alone in life and to prevent being away from the ones they love. The second main theme is that things, people, and events are not always what they appear to be, which is set up and conveyed many times throughout the story.
A Rose for Emily, is greatly influenced and set up and around the plot of the story. I believe one of the two main themes of the story are that people may resort to desperate measures to prevent being alone in life and to prevent being away from the ones they love. The second main theme is that things, people, and events are not always what they appear to be, which is set up and conveyed many times throughout the story. This story portrays the love and commitment that Miss Emily has for her lover Homer and depicts the constant gossip of the local townspeople with regards to Emily's seemingly, uncouth and bizarre actions.
After the death of Miss Emily's father her actions and mannerisms became even more bizarre. When Miss Emily's father died, she kept the body for three days before she broke down and came to the realization that the first man that had ever shown her love (her father) was gone. In my opinion this broke her heart and began the process of her more pronounced distance from reality and the rest of the world. The following summer she met Homer, a day laborer from the North. Miss Emily and Homer were seen around town by the many townspeople, who were glad for Emily but at the same time they didn't believe that Emily's relationship with Homer would become serious, because he was a Northerner and a day laborer.
When people observed a very positive relationship between Homer and Emily they all stated, "she has fallen"(Flaukner,57) . They weren't even the least bit surprised when Emily went to the local druggist to get some poison (arsenic) to kill some "rats", they just assumed that she was tired of living in sin, and that she got the poison to kill herself, once that conclusion was reached, the people went about their normal lives and decided suicide would be the best thing Emily could do under her circumstances. Since Emily had no intention of killing herself some of the townspeople began to say that her lifestyle was a disgrace to the town and a bad influence on the children of the town. They were so outraged at this display of immoral behavior that, the wife of the towns Baptist minister wrote Emilys' cousins about her behavior.
People watched the development of Emily's life with her cousins, after awhile gossip spread about town again, and they were "sure" that Emily and Homer had gotten married, because Miss Emily had been at the local jeweler's and ordered a man's toilet set in silver, with the letters H. B. on each piece. Two days later she bought a complete outfit of men's clothing, including a nightshirt. The townspeople were happy about this and ran the cousins off. Sure enough, within three days after the cousins were gone Homer was back in town. A neighbor of Emily's saw her manservant let Homer through the kitchen door at dusk one evening And that was the last the town saw of Homer.
Miss Emily wasn't seen or heard from for six months. The next time Miss Emily is heard from her hair has turned gray with the onset of age. She kept herself busy for about seven years giving china painting lessons. Sometime during her sixties, after seven years of painting lessons, Miss Emily closed her door for good and was never publicly seen again. .
Many years later Miss Emily died at the age of seventy four. The entire town attended her funeral but for very different reasons. The men attended out of simple respect for the fallen town character, and the women so they could satisfy their curiosity and get a look inside Miss Emily's house shunned. The house is open to the public and the men go to the upstairs room, which to the towns knowledge had not been opened or seen in over forty years, and broke down the door. Once the door was broken down to the shock of the townspeople they found the body of Emily lover Homer decayed to a skeleton, they also noticed a second pillow with an indentation of a head and they saw on the pillow a long gray hair.
My personal opinion is that Emily picked Homer to replace the only man who loved her. When her father died she wanted the body. If she would have been able to keep the body there would be no doubt that when she died the body in the bed would have been the body of her father. also he not only has some of the same qualities of her father such as they are both occupied in controlling roles but also he is a northener in a southern town and he is a traveler and often leaves town unnoticed so if she killed him during the night who would know and even yet who would care.
Works Cited
Flaukner, William . "A Rose for Emily." Portable Literature. Ed. Laurie Kirszner, and Stephen Mandell. Boston: Wadsworth Publishing, 2004. 57.
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