Comparing The Horse Dealer's Daughter And A Rose For Emily

Around the 1920’s women had no rights, being completely reliant on their husbands and fathers their whole lives. While the men went to work and provided for the family, women were left with the task of cleaning and cooking. Naturally, everyone depends on something or someone to live. Although, depending too much on a specific pattern is not good at all. In the short story, A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, Miss Emily’s life is marked by male individuals. The same goes for Mabel in The Horse Dealers Daughter. Throughout the stories, both girls were completely dependent on their fathers and now they demonstrate the effects of losing that security. Seeing how they suddenly lost their stability, it is clear that the way they relied on their
Her existence is guided by a belief system and culture that was dying. However, her father would never surrender his southern honor by allowing his daughter to marry someone he considered unworthy. “We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.” (Faulkner) This dominant behavior influenced her whole life; he taught her that the only way to live was to be controlled by a man. The same kind of situation is seen in The Horse Dealers Daughter with Mabel. Through the narrator, the reader learns that Mabel is unaware of what she will do now that her father has died. “She had loved her father, too, in a different way, depending on him, and feeling secure in him.” (Lawrence) Like Miss Emily, Mabel was also dependent on her father. Despite her brothers appearing to have organized their lives after his passing, her future remains in doubt. Though she has the opportunity to leave the village and live with her sister, she does not go because she does not want to realize what she had lost. A life depending on men is all she has known, in fact, she would rather die than looking after her sister. In the end, Mabel goes to drown herself in the lake when she comes to the conclusion that she does not want to live a life where she has to work for herself. Both Miss Emily and Mabel, after
For instance, Miss Emily was so torn and desperate that she quickly developed a need for Homer in her life soon after she met him. She then killed Homer, in order to prevent his leaving. Miss Emily decided his life has held no significance if he was not with her. After her father’s death she then relied on Tobe, he was her only connection to the outside world. From depending on her father to depending on Tobe, she went from one man to the next. Mabel did the same, although rather than having a servant, she had her brothers to tell her what to do. “You’ll have to make up your mind between now and next Wednesday,’ said Joe loudly, ‘or else find yourself lodgings on the kerbstone.” (Lawrence) Her three brothers were right there, telling her what she had to do and showing her only options. She had already made her decision. “‘It wasn’t foolish,’ she said, still gazing at him as she lay on the floor, with a sofa cushion under her head. ‘It was the right thing to do. I knew best, then.’” (Lawrence) She saw no other solution than to take her own life, even after the doctor was manipulated to love her. “‘No, I want you, I want you,’ was all he answered, blindly, with that terrible intonation which frightened her almost more than her horror lest he should not want her.”