"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner
HOMEWORK: to be posted before Wednesday, March 10.
How does society feel about Emily? What is expected of Emily by the townspeople? Why do they feel this way and what proof is there in the text? Make sure to include at least one quote from the text with the page number.
Start a dialogue. If you do not understand something or if you find that Emily's dilemma is perplexing, address your classmates and see what they think.
Also: Read "Sonny's Blues" for Monday's lecture. We will be wrapping up Emily on Wednesday and then we will segue into "Sonny's Blues."
In my opinion society doesn't know how to feel about Emily. She is almost this person behind a window that they tend to watch and study. Since she is so secluded and antisocial it's hard for them to reach out to her. There is a good example of this in the text, ["And as soon as the old people said, "Poor Emily," the whispering began. "do you suppose it's really so?" they said to one another. "Of course it is. What else could..."]
ReplyDeleteSociety does almost nothing more than gossip about what is happening in her life. They seem so concerned but no one reacts to reach her a helping hand, almost as if she is a celebrity. Perhaps it is because they are unsure on how she would react to the attention.
-Matt Bronson
I think Emily's community think of her almost as a side show. She's expected to be the rich old lady. Nothing more. In the very beginning of the story Faulkner states exactly how the town feels about her.
ReplyDelete["When Miss Emily died, our whole town went to the funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant, had seen in at least ten years" (391)] her funeral is almost like an event. Something that they can all talk about. I think the fact that she secluded herself was part of the fun for the town. It kept them occupied and talking.
I believe that Emily was very vital to the community, i think she was important even though the town may have thought otherwise. I think the people really did care about her deep down inside, there were a couple passages in the text that showed that, this is a great example.
ReplyDelete"When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to the funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant, had ever seen in at least ten years"
In this paragraph they refer to her as "A Monument" and they say the whole town was at the funeral and stuff so this is a good example of why i think they actually loved and respected Emily.
Emily's townspeople have respect for her family and values their presence, to validate, "our whole town went to her funeral...respectful affection for a fallen monument" (thoughts from the men). Lets focus on the phrase, respectful affection for a fallen monument-wow (word choice to demonstrate thoughts and emotions { intense }
ReplyDeleteThe women, mostly out of curiosity- interesting ( just highlighting the differences in the gender's behaviors toward Emily ). Based on this concept one can conclude there are conflicted emotion.
"Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town" the townspeople expects her to be strong and a role model like her father. Emily was not prepared to accept such responsibilities based on lack of experience and understanding of the expectations placed on her. As a result she has placed a barrier that separates her from society (comfort zone). She could be embarrassed about a lot of things which she uses the isolation as a defense mechanism in not dealing with her dilemmas.
P.S. my thoughts could be off the wall or could be factual to a degree, lol; just generating thoughts outside the box.
Great comments so far -- thinking outside the box is great! Having ideas that are different or seeing things differently than others means you are really thinking and analyzing.
ReplyDeleteI feel like society's outlook on Emily is very ambiguios. It is almsot as if they don't know how to feel about her. After reading the frist paragraph you think they all really cared about her for going but you realize that the women only go because they want to see whats in her house. The men go out of "respectful attention." It seems that it is only curiosity of Emily and her quiet life. I feel like half the townspeople don't care about Emily and they only are going for there own entertainment. Just something to think about.
ReplyDeleteCudge
Throughout the entire story, i felt that none of the towns people really cared about Emily. There is no particular place that states this, but in summing up the entire story, the towns people waited for her to die and went through her house and broke down doors. "Already we knew that there was one room in that region above the stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it"(397). Here, the narrator proves to us that they simply waited for her to die and then searched her home for more clues about her, her life, and the house. I feel that the towns people, with a probably exception of a few individuals, went to her funeral just so that when they went to her house and searched it they wouldn't feel as guilty. Also, they probably went because that was the thing to do then. And even if they didn't know or care about Emily as a person, they went because that was the respectable thing to do for others in the town. The towns people were more curious about her home and what she had going on in there rather than her herself.
ReplyDeletekate h
I think that the way the towns people felt about Emily would be the same way they thought about a stray animal. If the animal needed help but did not want it, then the people would give up and would not try their best to make sure it got the help needed. In the story Emily needs help from the towns people but they do not give her it. They also talk about Emily like she is an object, instead of talking about her like she is a person. No one worried about her, but they all wanted to create gossip about her and her actions. "We were a little disappointed that there was not a public blowing-off, but we believed that he had gone on to prepare for Miss Emily's coming, or to give her a chance to get rid of the cousins"(395). This quote shows that the towns people just wanted drama and to use Emily as entertainment instead of treating her like any other person.
ReplyDeleteThe society is confused by Emily. They feel that she was a social outcast and didn't want to confront her to ask how she was, or even say hi to her. However, when she died it was a different story. Everybody wanted to know how she lived and what she did in her house all day. Therefore, the townspeople expect Emily to be open about her life because of the oddities that occur around her and her house. For example, in the story William Faulkner says, "The next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily's lawn and slunk about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork and at the cellar openings while one of them performed a regular sowing motion with his hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder" (288 book without the cd). This shows how the townspeople would go to any extent to find out all the secrets of Emily Grierson. The fact that some of the townspeople would break into her house shows the reader that they were almost desperate to find out Emily's thought process and what was actually happening in her house.
ReplyDeleteDeanna D
It was difficult for Emily to comprehend the emotions and feelings that society had for her. Even though she secluded herself from society,"After her father's death she went out very little; after ... sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all." The town grew a great deal of sympathy towards Emily. Although she never heard it, she was slightly aware of the rumors and words going around the town. The gossip may have been the cause of her behavior. The town could not wait to pity her because of how she was raised with the thought that she would never be alone or without her rich father.
ReplyDelete-Spencer Lypides
The way I see the townspeople viewing Emily, is that she is their 'excitement.' They obviously have to search for interesting things going on around her house to be able to uncover her sort of 'mysterious' outlook. ". . .affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house. . ." (391) They treat her as if she wasn’t even alive to begin with...but rather, an object that sat around in the same, dreary position, struggling to find a place in the society.
ReplyDeleteSociety is intrigued by people who are out of the norm...or what is thought to be the norm. From becoming misplaced, makes that person unusually and easily targeted by nosy people.
The townspeople treat Emily as a monument, and place her being as a superior to, in regards to people’s interest. Due to the fact that Emily is seen as misplaced from society, the townspeople are drawn to her mystery.
Society feels Emily is a sideshow attraction and not a real person with real emotion. The townspeople expectation is part of the problem for Emily because they have no expectation for Emily other than for her to live her life as she sees fit. They feel this way because of her high society family and the best example of it that I can think of is when she buyes arsonic but the shop owner does not throughly question it. "The druggist looked down at her. She looked back at him, erect, her face like a stained flag. " Why of course," the druggist said. If that's what you want. But the law requires you to tell what you are going to use it for"" (395). She never told him yet he gave it to her anyway.
ReplyDeleteI think society sees Emily as a hurt individual that is scared to take the plunge into society. She has suffered from the loss of the only person that she really knew and I think she remains in her house to block herself off and to not be exposed to the harshness of society. the townspeople briefly saw her at different points in time. One of the most important times she was seen by the townspeople was right before her death. "When we first saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray. During the next few years it grew grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray..."(396). It is from this passage we see that Emily has truly let herself gone. Her sadness has made her a recluse and as a reader one can come to the conclusion that if we allow ourselves to become a recluse we will never fully reach our true stance in society.
ReplyDeleteHow does society feel about Emily? What is expected of Emily by the townspeople? Why do they feel this way and what proof is there in the text? Make sure to include at least one quote from the text with the page number.
Society feels like Emily is some sort of statue that is physically there but doesn't have any feeling or emotion to their surroundings. The townspeople mention, "...her upright torso motionless as that of an idol," (393) as if Emily was not human. Her community expected her to not show any emotion and be anti-social since her father kept her from being active outside as he,"...had driven away..." (393), all those that tried speaking to her. Emily's community should have interacted with her and made the attempt to make her social, but by the time her father died it seemed to much for people to try to be involved.
ReplyDeleteEmily is a familiar person we see everyday. she lives a very seldom life as if the world was her enemy and all emotion and feeling was not something she showed. the community just accepted her that way thinking that she is a person that does not like to interact with people and wanted to live her life seldomly. the gossips really ruined it for her because instead of making an effort to show her care they just let her be.
ReplyDeleteSociety views Emily as a martian. They watch her every move, and she is their entertainment, their gossip. On page 395, the very first sentence of part four is, "So the next day we all said, 'She will kill herself' ' and we said it would be the best thing." The townspeople do not even care about Emily, they care about what we will do next, they don't care that she'd be dead. The townspeople should leave Emily alone, or help her, not scrutinize her. She is lonely, sad and does not know what to do with herself. She pretends that her father is not dead and no one really knows what happened to Homer. She just needs help and that's not what the townspeople are doing for her.
ReplyDeleteIlliana, we share the sentiments where this is concerned.I wanted to mention that but i choose something else, but i'm glad u did.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Great minds think a like...lol
Enjoy your weekend
Allison, wow- soooooo true and sad, what does that tell you about society then and now?
ReplyDelete"she will kill herself..it would be the best thing"...leaving someone of thier own hometown to fall, not lending a helping hand!(i could not fathom the idea)
not to sound like a pessimist but the thoughts and behaviors of people surrounding us are horrific. Maybe thats why people put thier walls up to protect themselves.