Analysis of A Rose for Emily

Grief and Gossip In William Faulkner’s work, A Rose for Emily, he speaks of a small town where a woman is presumed to be “mysterious” and “crazy.

” Today, there are tragic stories of women who kill their husbands on the news and vice versa. Cases like these usually include fatal attraction, greed and adultery. By the end of these stories, these women are depicted as insane or psychotic that had a motive whether it was for money or for a lover. Like these women, it is suggested that Miss Grierson is a potentially psychotic for having a man’s body in her house for some time but there are Justifiable reasons or her behavior.

In Faulkner’s essay, themes of grief, gossip and abandonment contribute to the idea that Miss Grierson is a sane woman.

Generally, everyone deals with grief differently. Some people might deem it best to move and throw away everything regarding the reason for grief; others may want to stay in the same place and hoard everything for memorabilia until they have departed from this life. In the beginning of Faulkner’s essay, Miss Grierson was grieving when her father passed away. She was at first in denial of her own father’s death; she told everyone that he imply was not dead.

One could say that thinking a thought like this is plain insane because the evidence was right in front of her. What people might not know is that this is one of the many stages of grief.

It was normal for Miss Grierson, like any other person, to feel as though her father’s death had not happened. Another stage of grieving is isolation. The narrator acknowledges that “After her father’s death she went out very little;” Miss Grierson stayed home and only came out if she absolutely needed to.

Being isolated and alone probably did not help her state of mind, but at hat point in time she felt that was the easiest and most sufficient way to deal and cope with the passing of her father. Just like denial, isolation after a loss, especially the loss of an immediate family member, is completely normal. Miss Grierson was not an insane, eerie woman.

She was simply a woman experiencing one of the roughest events a person will eventually go through. Gossip could be defined as a casual conversation about other people involving details that not entirely true, thus creating rumors.

Gossiping about people, specifically in a small town is very common. It passes the time especially when there re days that time seems to limp along. Unfortunately, people fail to realize that the person they are speaking of has feelings and could possibly find out about what was said of them.

Miss Grierson, for example, seemed to be the talk of the town. Most people always had an opinion about her, especially the women of the town. Besides Tobe, her housekeeper, and Homer Barron, her presumed lover, she did not have many acquaintances after the passing of her father.

One could assume that if and when she went to into town, she was stared at and whispered about. This could have caused Miss Grierson to become distant and reluctant to go into town.

The more this probably occurred, the less time she spent in town. Any rumor or whisper contributed, like the grieving process, to the isolation of Miss Grierson; thus adding onto the misconception that Miss Grierson is a mysterious, spooky woman. The that are said about Miss Grierson from town are assumptions that they create from a simply action. For example, Miss Grierson went into town to buy rat poison; some people thought that she was going to kill herself.

She could have simply wanted it for the very purpose of it to kill rats, but because the town gossiped a lot about her, they ssumed that committing suicide was much more logical. When Miss Grierson actually passed away, the very first thing the women of the town did was intrude into her home to find more things to gossip about.

While peeping through Miss Grierson’s house, they opened a bedroom door and found a decaying Homer Barron. Although this was a shocking find, it still doesn’t prove Miss Grierson is an insane woman. It seems as though Miss Grierson gone through multiple situations of abandonment.

First, her and her father had a falling out with other family members, leaving them on their own without any extra family support. During Miss Grierson’s life living with her father, he drove away many young men, leaving her single past her thirtieth year. After her father passed away, she had no one.

She was all alone in her house, which was the only thing she really had. Miss Grierson did not have a husband or man of interest because the “Griersons held themselves a little too high” obviously leaving her with no one to love or care for, only memories to reminisce on. She was abandoned by everyone she had ever loved or cared for.

One could only imagine how lonely it would be to have no friends or family around you anymore. This could easily lead into depression, another part of grieving. When Miss Grierson met Homer Barron, he probably reminded her of her father because he was a hard worker.

In town, it seemed to have gotten around that Miss Grierson was interested in this man. He was likable and appealing. So, when they found Homer in Miss Grierson’s house decaying, it was no surprise because she needed him to stay with her so she was not alone. She did not want to be abandoned again. Miss Grierson could have possibly poisoned him.

Maybe she actually used the arsenic for rats.

Either way her actions are those of an emotionally damaged woman. There is no question that this is the case. Before all of these tragic events, she was a normal, healthy and wealthy woman. After having a domino effect of tragedy occur to one being, it could change their state of mind. Miss Grierson could have not known that she would be so desperate as to keep a dead man’s body in her house for the sake of not being abandoned and alone. She was not insane or psychotic.

She was a woman dealing with grief, gossip and abandonment that eventually made her into an emotionally damaged individual.