A rose for Emily

¶ … Mystery in William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"

William Faulkner's short story, "A Rose for Emily," captures our attention because it is a love story and a mystery at the same time. The love story is embedded in the dark mystery that surrounds Miss Emily, a mysterious old lady that grows increasingly eccentric with time. Faulkner paints an incredible picture by setting up the story and enticing the reader with the mystery that surrounds Miss Emily. That alone is enough to keep us reading. We want to know what it is about her that warrants a short story. We do not know until the last paragraphs of the story and Faulkner's ability to keep us reading until those last words demonstrates his skill as a writer. He utilizes several techniques to construct this mysterious love tale, including narration, imagery, and symbolism. Love is at the heart of this story but there is much more to it than that. Love also becomes the motivating factor for Emily's bizarre behavior. Love is indeed a mystery and nothing startles us like the macabre mystery of Miss Emily.

Rose for Emily," is undoubtedly a love story. Michael Burdock takes it one step further and claims that the story is one of a "grotesque love" (Burdock). We can agree that is grotesque indeed. There are many aspects to this story that reveal the complexity of love and how it can shape an individual. They are gripping and they consume us. David Madden claims, "Miss Emily's story is certainly bizarre, suspenseful, and mysterious enough to engage the reader's attention fully" (Madden). We first see Emily's strange love displayed through her relationship with her father. Emily is dependent upon her father because of how he treats her when he is alive. He was protective of her and this contributed to her dependency on him. Emily's father loved her so much that no one goof enough for her. We read that he "had driven away" (Faulkner 455) any possible suitors for Emily possibly because they were not good enough. Love becomes even more significant to Emily because of her father's behavior. What she does not realize is that he has ruined any chances of her finding a good man while she is young. Her father oppresses her and becomes the predominant reason why she becomes a hermit after his death. While he thought he was doing well by shielding Emily from some of life's difficult experiences, he was doing more harm because she was not prepared to live an independent life without a man. Her love for her father was so powerful that she refused to believe that he was dead. The narrator of the story realizes that after her father's death, Emily "would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will" (455). This aspect of her life is significant when it comes to Homer and her feelings toward him.

Homer Barron was not a particularly lucky man. He appears at a time when Emily needs a man in her life and Emily is very accustomed to getting what she wants. Elizabeth Kurtz backs up this notion, adding, "Because of her father's intervention with previous suitors, Emily has passed the usual age for courting when Homer Barron arrives in town sometime after her father's burial. She must have known that at her age she would have limited opportunities to attract a beau" (Kurtz 40). There is more going on here, however, and Kurtz points it out. She claims, "Emily needs love so desperately that she is willing to bend and perhaps even flaunt tradition when she allows Homer Barron to court her" (40). Emily is willing but Homer is not and that is a problem Emily is not afraid to solve.

Homer is a significant character because he is an object of love and of mystery. From the first mention of him in the story, he is mysterious. We do not know what he means to Emily until the end of the story. It is important to note, however, that how she interacts with him can be an indicator of her true nature. The two figures are in contrast as Homer symbolizes modernity and change while Emily symbolizes stagnation and the old south. Strangely, Homer can also be seen as a beacon of hope for Emily. Emily seems to change after Homer appears and there is a hint of a possible romance. Rumors even fly about the two getting married. However, Homer is a modern man that only "liked men" (Faulkner 456). Truly, Homer is an innocent victim. He might have entertained Emily just to be nice. From the ending of the story, we know that Emily loved Homer. Kurtz notes:

If Homer had been the type to settle down, Miss Emily might have been capable of leaving the southern gentlewoman's traditions behind. The changes that must come when life is lived might have been possible, however, her eventual realization that Homer is 'not a marrying man' is the shock that destroys her fragile emotional equilibrium. (Kurtz 40)

Indeed, the truth was far too much for Emily to handle. We all know that love can drive people to do crazy things and Emily demonstrates this point clearly. Faulkner keeps the mystery alive until the last words of the story and then we are still in shock. Judith Fetterly notes, "The ending is shocking not only because of the suggestion of necrophilia but because the possible perpetrator is a murderer who is female; both details seem unnatural and hence grotesque" (Fetterly 34). Again, we must discuss the grotesque. Madden agrees that the love is grotesque, adding that Emily's relationships "may elicit many Freudian interpretations" (Madden). Jack Scherting maintains that Emily suffers from Oedipal complex, in that her "desires for her father were transferred, after his death, to a male surrogate, Homer Barron" (Scherting 399). This appears to be true as no other men come into Emily's life. She needs someone to love and Homer happens to appear when Emily is ready to love again.

Emily teaches us what we are capable of when we are in love and when we want love. Sometimes we want love so badly, we will tell not only ourselves anything to keep love alive but we will also believe anything to keep it alive. Burdock explores Faulkner's reason for Emily purchasing rat poison from the druggist. He surmises that one slang interpretation of the word rat "applies to a man who has cheated on his lover" (Burdock). If we consider this true, then we understand Emily's motivation for buying the poison, however irrational it may be. "In order to keep Homer by her side, Emily poisoned him" (Burdock). It is grotesque behavior and one that is not expected from a lover. However, a jilted lover could resort to these tactics in an instant. It is safe to assume that Emily was jilted. Instead of just letting Homer go, Emily decides to keep him by her side forever. Emily might have been crazy but she did have taste. She prepared a room for Homer like no other. The biggest mystery of all was the room upstairs was decorated as if for a "bridal" (Faulkner 458). In addition, we read that the "the man himself lay in bed" (459). To make things even more mysterious and grotesque is how we are told that the "body had apparently once lain I the attitude of an embrace" (459). Furthermore, what was left of him was "inextricable from the bed" (459). Adding to the grotesque nature of this strange love story is the strand of "iron-gray hair" that is found next to Homer's rotten corpse. Emily had Homer right were she wanted him - in her room, erased from public.

Love and denial hold hands in this tale. We cannot look at Emily without seeing a woman in love and a woman in denial. Her denial is present in almost every aspect of her life. It is clear that she is a woman out of time. She does believe that she owes taxes and cannot accept the fact that Colonel Sartoris is dead even though he has been dead for over a decade. Upon her father's death, Emily simply denied it. When she is approached, she answers the door "with no trace of grief on her face. She told them her father was not dead" (Faulkner 454). She keeps the dead corpse in her house for three days and someone else must physically remove it. Emily could not cope with change. Robert Warren says, is Faulkner is "aware of the romantic pull of the past, he is also aware of the submission to romance of the past is a form of death" (Warren 367). Nothing illustrates this more than Emily's attachment to the past and her inability to accept change. She kills herself before she is dead and gone but she is not aware that she has done so.

Aside from being a love story, "A Rose for Emily" is also a mystery. Faulkner utilizes many techniques in setting up this mystery and one is imagery. The images associated with the house are ones that conjure up visions of death. For example, we read that the house had "a big, squarish frame house that had once been white" (Faulkner 452). It had once been on the town's "most select street" (452) but now it was doing well to lift its "coquettish decay about the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps - an eyesore among eyesores" (452). It also smells of "dust and disuse -- a close, dank smell" (452). These images foreshadow what is about to occur in the house and they prepare us for a woman that is much like the house in that she is stuck in a time and place that does not exist anymore. Another technique Faulkner uses with the house is symbolism. The house is also a symbol representing the contrast between the present and the past. Because the house never changes, it can also be a symbol of Emily's life. It embodied everything Emily knew. It kept Emily and those she loved safe and secure. Renee Curry believes the house is more than just a house. She notes, "Faulkner's desire to get inside this house, yet his unwillingness or his inability simply to enter in while Emily lives, establishes Emily as psycho-barrier. This woman thwarts Faulkner's ability to negotiate the intimate space he has, as author, created to house her" (Curry). If we look at it this way, we can see how the house is very much a part of the story. We want to get inside as well but we, too, are held back until the very end when we finally see what the rest of the town does. While the last room of the house is shocking, it provides the missing pieces of the puzzle. The house allows Emily to live out her dreams - however deadly they may be.

The story is nothing without death. Again, Faulkner prepares us for the surprise ending with images that whisper death. Emily's appearance and body change from young and sweet to old and dying. Young Emily is a "slender figure in white" (Faulkner 454). Older Emily usually dressed in black. Her hue is "pallid" (453) and she looks "bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water" (453). In addition, her voice is "dry and cold" (453). Even her hair grows "grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray" (457). These images, directly associated with Emily, point toward death. There are other techniques that Faulkner employs to gear the story toward mystery. One of the most significant is the narration. We depend on this narrator for every piece of information and Faulkner withholds information to keep us in suspense. He does this in such a way that we are almost unaware that anything is being withheld. Edmond Volpe states, "Faulkner sometimes deliberately withholds important details, and the narrators frequently refer to people or events that the reader will not learn about until much later, making the style seem even more opaque than it really is" (Volpe 366). This is the case with "A Rose for Emily." Death is a big secret to keep and Faulkner does a good job keeping us in suspense.

Our narrator drifts from the present to the past. The structure is important to our understanding and the story is structured in such a way that it becomes more and more mysterious. Laura Getty maintains, "The chronology deliberately manipulates and delays the reader's final judgment of Emily Grierson by altering the evidence" (Getty 230). The final paragraph holds all of the answers and Faulkner keeps in the dark on purpose. Joseph Reed believes that the story is a "ghost story" (Reed) because it "depends on suspense, order, empathy with the first-person narrator, death and decay as subjects, and the reader's desire for horror" (Reed 13). Interestingly, Reed points out that part of Faulkner's success as with the narrator lies in the fact that we never doubt him or her. Instead, we "retain an allegiance" (Reed 15) to the narrator "who seems tough-minded and objective and who promises us horror" (Reed 15). Getty continues, "What the chronology does is as important as when the events actually take place" (Getty 230). While there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the events of the story, they are laid perfectly in place to surprise us. Getty claims, "the story's chronology is a masterpiece of subtle insinuations" (Getty 230). This is true and it demonstrates Faulkner's ability to construct a mysterious love story from what appears to be a tale about an old spinster.

There is another element of mystery that is associated with the narration of the story and that is secrecy. Curry notes:

The mystery lives on in Faulkner's ability to tell this secretive tale... Faulkner abides by the form in that he provides Emily as enigma, Homer Barron's murder as focal point, and the bisexual narrator to exhibit the conscious voice of the tale, but the revelation of Homer Barron's skeleton, coupled with the gray hair at the end of the tale, affords an irregular closure and limited 'knowingness' for the reader. Although the story closes in the sense that its words cease, no mention of restoration of any order reveals itself through the language of the tale. Faulkner stops writing, and the narrator stops narrating at the sight of the unlikely coupling of the skeleton and the hair. The narrator sees but ceases to narrate at the sight. (Curry)

We have an ending but we are left wondering if that is all that there is to this story. Because we discover the secret just moments before the story ends, we wonder if there are more secrets we should know. Even more interesting is that we want to know them. Faulkner has created the mystery and kept it alive after the words have stopped.