Cherished Corpses in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"
This essay analyzes William Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily," focusing on the protagonist Emily Grierson's disturbing attachment to the dead bodies of her father and her suitor Homer Barron. The paper argues that Emily's refusal to relinquish these corpses stems from a lifelong pattern of isolation, powerlessness, and thwarted autonomy. Drawing on key scenes from the text, the essay traces how Emily's domineering father denied her independence during his lifetime and how Homer Barron's potential departure prompted Emily to resort to murder and possession of his decomposing body as a means of asserting control over her own circumstances.
- Introduction: The Grierson Family and the Mystery of Emily: Emily's corpse retention introduced as bid for control
- Isolation and Modernization in Jefferson: Jefferson modernizes while Emily remains cut off
- Homer Barron's Arrival and Disappearance: Homer courts Emily then vanishes from Jefferson
- The Discovery of Homer's Corpse: Homer's rotted body found locked in Emily's bedroom
- Emily's Insanity and Her Attachment to the Dead: Emily's isolation and insanity examined through the text
- Conclusion: Control Through Possession: Emily murders and possesses Homer to avoid abandonment
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper anchors its central argument — that Emily's attachment to corpses reflects a desire for control — early and consistently, returning to that thesis throughout each section.
- It uses direct quotations from the primary text to support each analytical claim, grounding interpretation in textual evidence rather than unsupported assertion.
- The essay connects Emily's two acts of corpse-retention (her father's and Homer's) to a single unifying psychological motivation, giving the analysis coherence across different episodes of the story.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper demonstrates thematic close reading of a short story: the writer identifies a recurring motif (refusal to relinquish the dead), traces it across multiple scenes, and uses it to build a unified interpretive argument. The technique of linking character psychology to plot events — rather than merely summarizing — is a hallmark of literary analysis at the undergraduate level.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with an extended block quotation that immediately establishes the central motif, followed by a thesis statement. Middle sections trace the plot chronologically while weaving in analysis of Emily's psychology and Jefferson's social context. The final section steps back to synthesize the argument, reaffirming the thesis about control and isolation before a brief conclusion. This pattern — evidence-first, then argument — is characteristic of textual analysis essays.
Introduction: The Grierson Family and the Mystery of Emily
A streak of insanity seems to run through the once-distinguished Grierson family of William Faulkner's mythical town of Jefferson, Mississippi, as depicted in his short story "A Rose for Emily." Near the beginning of the story, Emily — the surviving, never-married Grierson daughter — demonstrates an extreme reluctance, even three days after her overbearing father's death, to allow his body to be removed by the authorities from the house:
The day after his death . . . Miss Emily met them at the door . . . She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.
We did not say she was crazy then. . . . We knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her . . . (p. 32)
Later, Emily poisons her one-time Yankee suitor Homer Barron, whom the town had conjectured would marry her. After that, as readers learn only at the end, Emily keeps Homer's corpse locked away, decomposing, inside her own bedroom. Emily's reluctance to part with first her father's dead body, and then that of Homer Barron, springs from an understandable effort to control her surroundings and circumstances — something she could not do in the company of either of these men while he remained alive.
Work Cited
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 4th Compact Ed. New York: Longman, 2005. 29–36.
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