ESSAY 2 ROSE FOR EMILY
Shaminika Paris Ballard
English 201.722
Professor Gardner
4/6/12
Essay 2`
RELUCTANT TO CHANGE
It is common for an individual to find comfort in familiar surroundings after being faced with a traumatic experience. In William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, the subject of the story is Emily Grierson, whose family in the South was once considered to be the closest thing to true aristocracy. Emily’s father had been an affluent man who believed that nobody was good enough to marry his daughter; he warded off any of her suitors, leaving Emily in solitude and possibly mentally unstable when he died. Two years after Emily’s father’s death, an allegedly gay Yankee laborer, Homer Barron, entered her life. The men and women of the town were intrigued that a Grierson was interacting with a male beneath their class. Simultaneously, Emily’s cousins from Alabama were called upon by the church to end Emily’s relationship with Homer and to clear the family name, Emily was spotted buying arsenic, and little later a mans night shirt, a toilet set with Homer’s initials. Rumors spread that she was gong to kill herself, and then that she would marry Homer after all. When Emily’s cousins left, Homer was last seen entering Emily’s kitchen door at night before he disappeared for good. Shortly after Homers disappearance, a rancid aroma coming from Emily’s yard induced the town elders to sprinkle lime around her property. About ten years later, to provide Emily with an income, the people of the town sent their children to her home for her china painting classes for a while. Later, it came to the city council’s attention that she was destitute and would continuously dismiss her tax payments. After Emily’s death, and funeral, a withered corpse wearing the nightshirt that Emily had purchased when she was seeing Homer, was discovered in her father’s old bed room. The pillow next to the corpse had an indentation, as if someone had been routinely sleeping there, and on the pillow, they found a
English 201.722
Professor Gardner
4/6/12
Essay 2`
RELUCTANT TO CHANGE
It is common for an individual to find comfort in familiar surroundings after being faced with a traumatic experience. In William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, the subject of the story is Emily Grierson, whose family in the South was once considered to be the closest thing to true aristocracy. Emily’s father had been an affluent man who believed that nobody was good enough to marry his daughter; he warded off any of her suitors, leaving Emily in solitude and possibly mentally unstable when he died. Two years after Emily’s father’s death, an allegedly gay Yankee laborer, Homer Barron, entered her life. The men and women of the town were intrigued that a Grierson was interacting with a male beneath their class. Simultaneously, Emily’s cousins from Alabama were called upon by the church to end Emily’s relationship with Homer and to clear the family name, Emily was spotted buying arsenic, and little later a mans night shirt, a toilet set with Homer’s initials. Rumors spread that she was gong to kill herself, and then that she would marry Homer after all. When Emily’s cousins left, Homer was last seen entering Emily’s kitchen door at night before he disappeared for good. Shortly after Homers disappearance, a rancid aroma coming from Emily’s yard induced the town elders to sprinkle lime around her property. About ten years later, to provide Emily with an income, the people of the town sent their children to her home for her china painting classes for a while. Later, it came to the city council’s attention that she was destitute and would continuously dismiss her tax payments. After Emily’s death, and funeral, a withered corpse wearing the nightshirt that Emily had purchased when she was seeing Homer, was discovered in her father’s old bed room. The pillow next to the corpse had an indentation, as if someone had been routinely sleeping there, and on the pillow, they found a