Emily Grierson Prognosis

Psychotherapeutic Process: Grief

William Faulkner’s persona in “A Rose for Emily” speaks of the dangers of psychological issues; psychological issues that affect every aspect of life for Emily Grierson. In all actuality, Emily Grierson suffers from anxiety, grief, and psychotic symptoms- this prognosis is supported by Miss Emily Grierson’s sleeping with Homer Baron, a corpse. The theme, or central message, in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” is that people suffer from psychological and psychotic issues but some go undiagnosed and untreated. According to the narrator in one of the important quotes from "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner the townspeople “did not say she was crazy” at first (Faulkner), and of course, she was
never evaluated, diagnosed, or treated by a mental health professional. Yet by the story’s conclusion, the reader can go back through the narrative and identify many episodes in which Miss Emily’s character and behavior hinted at the possibility of a mental illness, even if the town wanted to deny this fact and leave her intact as a social idol. In fact, this information could be used to support the claim that Miss Emily suffered from schizophrenia as defined by the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-IV criteria (American Psychiatric Association 159). It is reasonable to propose that Miss Emily developed this mental illness as a response to the demanding conditions in which she was living as a Southern woman from an aristocratic family.
If one agrees that Miss Emily was schizophrenic, then naturally one might want to understand the influences that precipitated her illness.
Kinney has argued that Miss Emily’s delusions, especially about her father’s death, develop as a defense mechanism, for the death of her father represents “the death of the old order and of herself as well” (94). John Staton adds that “Having been consumed by her father [figuratively], Emily in turn feeds off Homer….She has taken into herself the violence in him which thwarted her and has reenacted it….” (235). Some feminist critics interpret Miss Emily’s illness differently. Appleton Aguilar, for instance, contends that Miss Emily “insists on maintaining her own existence, which the townspeople continually refuse to allow as they wish her to sustain her position as icon and memorial to the antebellum South” (30). While Miss Emily’s gender and her place, both literally and figuratively, certainly exacerbate and may have even caused her condition, there is far too much textual evidence to support the counterargument. Miss Emily is not merely trying to assert an independent existence; rather, she has never been able to do so and for that reason she has developed symptoms of schizophrenia as a maladaptive coping mechanism. Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is a short story that is, at its heart, a tale about the pressures of society and the ways in which they can wear people down. Miss Emily lacked adaptive coping skills to help her manage
substantial stressors, and for this reason, she was vulnerable to the onset of mental illness.
We know that there are many people who simply refuse to accept change because they fear the unknown. We must understand that this kind of change must have been very hard on some people and therefore they created a world of delusion around them. Malin (1969) wrote: "Miss Emily, it becomes obvious fairly early in the story, is one of those persons for whom the distinction between reality and illusion has blurred out. When Barron Homer finally enters her life, Emily has again found a man to take the place of her dead father; only this is someone she can have sexual liaison with. Most specific preparation of all, when her father dies, she denies to the townspeople for three days that he is dead "In short, William Faulkner's Rose for Emily is not a simple story of murder and mystery. Her behavior leads to frustration and violence and makes her create an unreal world around her. This is exactly what happens in A Rose for Emily where Emily is shown as a simple mysterious woman who didn't like intrusion or interference in her life. Instead, she refers the committee to Colonel Sartoris, who, as the reader is told, has been dead for nearly ten years. Celia Rodriguez (1996) writes, "She was a "monument" of Southern gentility, an ideal of past values but fallen because she had shown herself susceptible to death (and decay). Faulkner would often keep his work deceptively simple just to maximize the impact of the last twist in the plot. There are many psychological causes for her behavior such as her inability to accept change and move ahead and also another major cause is sexual repression, which leads to perversity, only to take his readers by complete surprise in the end.