Comparison Of Miss Havisham And William Faulkner's Miss Emily

Charles Dickens Miss Havisham and William Faulkner’s Miss Emily attributed an analogy in respect of the mysterious as well as miserable life they lead. Despite the fact that both memorable characters are created in dissimilar periods and by different writers, shared fundamental similarities. This comparative study is not only focusing on the common plights, conflicts and circumstances, but also.examine the contrasting points of their lives. The writers effectively used the description of physical appearance to illustrate their pyche.The paper also concentrates on their gradual development from young, cheerful spinsters to desolated old women, left to live a frustrated, loveless, isolated life, even worse than death. Both belong to reputed and
Faulkner presented her as a mysterious but pitiable character to sympathize. She is the only daughter or can say the last generation of an old aristocratic, Southern family of America after the civil war. She is portrayed as an innocent girl, nurtured under the control and values of her father, who himself is an epitome of old Southern beliefs. His father eliminated all his suitors as did not find them suitable for her. “Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were. None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door.”(Collected Stories 123) The sudden demise of her father left her lonely as well as single at the age of thirty,alongwith forced her to live a frustrated and loveless life in such an era, where women are supposed to live under protection and control of their father or
The sudden demise of Mr. Grierson causing her to be exceedingly afraid of being alone. Emily found love in Homer “a Yankee- a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face”(Collected Stories124) He was a person lower than her in social status but she didn’t care about that.. “It was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson; as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness.”(Collected Stories125) As her yearning for companionship is so intensified that she wants to win him at any cost, lacking care of her purported southern nobility.Homer does not reciprocate her feeling, as the riddle regarding his sexuality remain unsolved till the end of the story. Then we said, “She will persuade him yet,”because Homer himself had remarked-“he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks’ Club- that he was not the marrying man.”(Collected Stories126).Her dream of happy married life, like other women got shattered .She does not want to live a solitary life so decide to poisoned Homer and keep him beside her for rest of life even though