This essay argues that Miss Emily Grierson's defiant nature, rather than psychological disorder alone, drives her most significant actions in William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily." The paper traces Emily's rebellion from her denial of her father's death and symbolic hair-cutting, through her scandalous courtship with Homer Barron and resistance to tax authority, to her ultimate act of murder. By analyzing textual evidence and critical sources, the essay demonstrates that Emily's defiance represents a conscious rejection of repressive forces—her father's control, Southern social conventions, and civic authority—ultimately revealing how her psychological deterioration becomes intertwined with her willful nonconformity.
Miss Emily Grierson, the main character in William Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily," is a strange woman by any rational person's standards. Her irregular and eccentric behavior becomes outright peculiar when the reader learns, like the townspeople in the story, that Miss Emily has spent years living and sleeping with Homer Barron's corpse. Many critics have argued that the isolated and controlled upbringing imposed by her father caused Emily's irrational behavior. While the origin of Emily's psychological deterioration helps explain the extent of her actions, this paper argues that it was Emily's defiant nature which guided her actions: to deny her father's death, to consistently show disregard for the townspeople's principles, to sustain a relationship with a Yankee, and ultimately to murder her lover.
Emily's defiant nature reveals itself as a consistent pattern throughout the narrative. Rather than passively accepting the role assigned to her—an obedient daughter, a respectable widow, a compliant citizen—Emily actively resists every constraint placed upon her. Each act of defiance builds upon the last, escalating in severity and consequence. What begins as a refusal to acknowledge her father's death becomes a refusal to hide a corpse, and ultimately a refusal to accept abandonment. This pattern demonstrates that Emily's actions, however disturbed they may appear, stem from a coherent psychological stance: the assertion of her will against those who would control her.
Emily's defiant nature was first revealed immediately following the death of her father. When the town's ladies visited to give their condolences, she "met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead" (Faulkner 86). For the first time, Emily was seen without her father standing between her and everyone else. Instead of continuing the role of an obedient woman, Emily seized her newly found freedom and reversed her role with her father's role. She was now denying callers the right to see him, just as he had denied suitors the right to see her. Emily's defiant nature denied her father's death, but her psychological disorder took this denial to the extreme of keeping his body until forced to relinquish it.
Emily's choice to cut her hair also contradicted her father's will. According to Xie Qun, "Her cut hair was a sign of her will to break away from her father's control. For the first time in her life she felt free even though she was thirty years old. With this restraint being cut and a new found freedom, she attempted to begin a new life" (Qun 68). Emily now had a feeling of power previously unknown to her and an appearance that signified a woman no longer under her father's control. This symbolic act—trimming the physical markers of her father's authority—became a turning point. Emily's defiance of her father's ideals would continue to shape her decisions as she moved through life, extending beyond personal grooming to her choice of companions and her relationship with authority itself.
Emily's selection of Homer Barron, "a Yankee—a big, dark and ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face" (Faulkner 87), was not only a further show of rebelliousness toward her father's memory, but also a defiant act against the Southern social standards of her town. Emily's courtship with Homer could have been seen as a disgrace because he was a Northerner and a day laborer. During the post-Civil War era, "the invasion of the northern industry and commercialization caused great tension among the southerners" (Fang 19). Emily appeared happy to exploit the tension in the town. She used her social status to defy the local townspeople by having a sexual relationship, out of wedlock, with a Northerner. She would further aggravate the tension she was causing by "carrying her head high" (Faulkner 87) when she knew people were staring at her as she rode by them with Homer. Keeping her head held high was a bold act; it demonstrated her unwillingness to feel shame for the situation she had created.
Emily further resisted her townspeople with the matter of her taxes. When she was first given a tax notice, she ignored it. When the aldermen mailed her a formal letter, she sent it back. Not even the mayor was worthy of a response to her tax matter. It was only when a group of aldermen showed up at her house that she even acknowledged their dispute over her taxes. According to Mary Arensberg and Sara Schyfter, "Her posture and silence…was her challenge to their right to pursue the course" (Arensberg 127). Emily did not have to defy them verbally at the beginning of the meeting; her physical stature was defiance enough. When questioned about the Sheriff's letter, Emily boldly responds, "Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff…I have no taxes in Jefferson" (Faulkner 85). With that statement, she not only defied their right to collect taxes from her, but also denied that the sheriff held any power over her with his title.
Perhaps it was the realization that neither the Mayor nor the Sheriff could force their will upon her which strengthened Emily's rebellious nature to the point where she felt no concern with any authority in Jefferson—not even concerning murder. Her successful resistance to civic institutions emboldened her sense of immunity. The Gothic setting and psychological isolation of her world became a kingdom unto herself, answerable to no one.
It has been widely criticized that Emily killed Homer Barron after she learned he intended to leave her. However, it was also likely that she killed him to defy the townspeople's expectations. Thomas Dilworth wrote, "it is logical to assume they [the townspeople] forced her to make a choice: either marry Homer or stop carrying on with him" (Dilworth 402). When given an ultimatum, Emily challenged both choices by killing Homer. Her daring act allowed her to disregard the townspeople while at the same time denying Homer the ability to desert her. Emily's defiant nature again led to a decision to disregard those around her, but her psychological disorder took that decision to the extent of murder.
Emily's greatest defiant act was not Homer's murder, but instead her disregard for hiding what she had done. Emily made no attempt to conceal Homer's body or disguise the smell of his rotting corpse. It was evident that the townspeople were aware that there was a dead body in Emily's house. When the group of men snuck around Emily's property spreading lime, they did not look for dead animals or shallow graves; instead, "They broke open the cellar door and sprinkled lime there, and in all the outbuildings" (Faulkner 86), knowing that a body was sitting out, not buried. Jack Scherting further justified this claim: "Smelling the stench, these men must have realized its source was no mere dead snake or rat. Such a strong smell can only come from a large corpse" (Scherting 258).
Scherting also provides compelling evidence that "in the time period that this story takes place, wakes were held in private homes and bodies were not embalmed. People were more familiar then with the smell of putrefaction" (Scherting 258). Emily's neighbors would certainly have recognized the odor for what it was, yet they only sought intervention for the offending smell, not a possible murder. Emily revealed her most daring defiant act by not concealing her crime. In refusing to hide Homer's body, she defied the very townspeople who had attempted to control her choices. Her transparency was itself an act of rebellion.
Evidence is clear that Emily Grierson was a psychologically disturbed woman, which resulted from her father's isolating and controlling upbringing. Emily's extreme actions throughout the story were indicative of her compromised mental state. However, it is also clear that each action was sparked by Emily's uncompromised defiance of any person or situation that could repress her into the person she was before her father died. Her defiance and her psychological disorder are not separate forces but intertwined aspects of the same tragic character. It is through understanding her defiant nature—her refusal to be controlled, her assertion of will against authority, her rejection of societal constraints—that we can fully comprehend why Emily Grierson became the isolated, murderous figure of Faulkner's darkly compelling narrative.
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