Parallelism In A Rose For Emily

May 14, 2011

Faulkner beautifully illustrates the morbid parallelism between Emily’s father and the house that imprisoned her. Both were controlled and manipulated by the very being that would eventually destroy them. Faulkner strategically places the home of the Grierson’s, on what was once consider a prestigious street in the crumbling, overcrowded town of Jefferson. Here, both monuments of the past are forced to maintain a dignified facade of sanity among an ever-changing society. There are two interpretations to be made in understanding the motive and meaning behind Emily murdering Homer Barron, in “A Rose for Emily”. The first motive deals with the personal revenge Emily seeks towards her father, the second being towards the town of
Another motive for the murder of Homer Barron was to prove to the patriarchal society of Jefferson that even though she, Emily, could not “persuade him to marry her” (535). Due to his perversions, she may still succeed in controlling Homer if her were dead. No one would be able to take that secret love she had for Homer away even though he would never reciprocate it the same way because of his alternative lifestyle. Homo Homer was an embarrassment to Emily, because for the first time ever she was free love someone, and he turned out to love young men more than women. This humanizes Emily even more and in turn it helps explode the decades of manipulation and control she receives at the hands of her father. She had a perfect plan; no one in the town of Jefferson would ever believe that Emily, being a real lady “to forget noblesse oblige—without calling it noblesse oblige” (535). “Emily is exempted from general indictment because she is a real lady-that is, eccentric, slightly crazy, obsolete, a “stubborn and coquettish decay”, absurd but indulged; “dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse”; indeed, anything and everything but human.” (561). Who would believe she would have murdered someone in order to have their