How the People See Emily

7/31/2019 How the People See Emily

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HOW THE PEOPLE SEE EMILY GRIERSONStory: A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

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When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see theinside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at least ten years.

We see here that people treated Emily as if she was an important, timeless figure to the wholetown no matter how reclusive she was either out of deep curiosity for her real nature orrespect for the old and who has been around for ages .

Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation uponthe town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor--he who fathered theedict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron-remitted her taxes,the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity. Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that MissEmily's father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it.

Though

When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, thisarrangement created some little dissatisfaction.

But because Emily was persistent that she had no taxes, the town gave up in making her pay. Itwas due to this persistence and rebellion that made it seem like Emily had authority of herown that she couldn t simply be subjected to the laws of the land. We see that the peoplealso dont want to have anything else to do with Emily, thus making it all the more possible forher to do things her way.

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"We really must do something about it, Judge. I'd be the last one in the world to bother Miss

Emily, but we've got to do something .*

*regarding the smell that enveloped her house two years after her fathersdeath and shortly after her sweetheart left her (take note of the word left )


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Only after sneakily removing the smell from her house did the townsfolk began feeling sorry forEmily.

We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in thebackground, 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. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized.

Here, the "back-flung" front door creates the first tableau of a youthful Miss Emily, assiduouslyguarded by her father. Emily, a "slender figure in white" , typifies the vulnerable virgin, hoveringin the background, subordinate and passive. The father, "a spraddled silhouette in the foreground,his back to her and clutching a horsewhip" , is a menacing dark image assuming the dominant frontposition. His turned back suggests a disregard for her emotional welfare as he wards off potential danger or violation of her chastity with his horsewhip. The back-flung door invites

suitors in, but only those who meet Grierson's standards. Unfortunately, those standards areunattainable The Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were" and MissEmily remains unwed at age thirty.

When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny moreor less.

She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days... just as they wereabout to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.

We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have tocling to that which had robbed her, as people will.

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Mr. Grierson has made such an impact in Emilys life that even after death, his intimidation takes visual form in Emily as she is compared to angels framed in church windows:

She was sick for a long time. When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows--sort of tragicand serene.

The images in this passage reveal a woman stripped of her sexuality.

In this portrait, Emily assumes the semblance of a girl instead of a sexually mature woman of thirty. Her cut hair is especially important. Since ancient times, a woman's hair has symbolized


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her sexuality. Emily's hair, along with her sexuality, has been cut short through her father'spride. The cut hair also introduces religious imagery, for an initiate into a nunnery shears herhair as a symbol of her chastity.

During the summer, though, people began seeing Emily riding about with him on Sundayafternoons in a buggy with a team of bays. Was she serious about him? Or was she just beingnice to an out-of-towner of inferior social status? Folks weren't sure. But they felt sorry for heras she was the last of the Griersons.

She carried her head high enough --even when we believed that she was fallen. It was as if shedemanded 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. Like when she bought the rat poison, the ar senic.

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Because of that, everyone thought that "she will kill herself" and that it would be the best thing.At first, they were glad because she had finally found a man, but then Homer himself had remarked that he was not a marrying man (with some people even saying that he might be gayas seen in his actions). Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and abad example to the young people.

After her father died, Emily had no husband and no income, so she clung to the past forsupport. She even denied that her father had died, a sign that her sanity was beginning todeteriorate.

Over the years, she remained in the past most of the time, living shut up in her house. Her onlyconnection with the outside world was her servant, who did the marketing. In a way then, Emilybecame a hidden relic of the Old South . To manifest her repudiation of modern ways, shespurned the tax bills of the new generation of government leaders and refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her d oor and attach a mailbox to it. Moreover, she defiantlyallowed her house to stand as it was before her father died, making no repairs or otherimprovements.

Whether Emily enthusiastically embraced Old South traditions in her youth or passivelyaccepted their imposition on her by her father is open to question. In either case, there can beno gainsaying that Emily became a living symbol of the Old South that is why when she died,our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallenmonument .


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How the People See Emily