Themes in A Rose for Emily

Themes in "A Rose for Emily"

• Death

• Control

• Societal expectations of the 18th century

• Hierarchy of social status and its effect on relationships

• Isolation

• Mental Illness 

• Loneliness 

​

​

According to Wikipedia, death can be seen throughout the story A Rose for Emily in many different ways. The narrator describes Emily at various different points in her life during the story and her physical descriptions are often very prominent and important. She is described in one case as a “skeleton” and in another as “a body long submerged in motionless water,” both of which conjure to mind the picture of dead bodies. A skeleton is often seen as the epitome of a symbol of death and is what all people end up becoming after they die, and a body submerged underwater can be equated to a drowning victim. Emily’s physical descriptions throughout the story seem to equate her to images of death, which adds to the fact that the story itself begins with her death. Death also clings to Emily and her story through the way she treats it and acts towards those who have died. When her father dies, Emily resists it and meets the townspeople “dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them her father was not dead.” (1173). The death of her father heavily affected Emily, as he was the only person she ever truly loved, and this effect can be seen through the way she treats the next person she loves, Homer Barron. Instead of death being something that suddenly comes between them without warning, Emily is the one who brings death between them herself. Wikipedia claims that because Homer Barron is a northern man, the ideals of marriage would not have been as important to him as they were to Emily, and it would have been very likely for him to leave. This is seen when Homer himself describes himself as “not a marrying man” (1175). Emily could not handle losing the only other person she ever loved, so instead of letting him leave she kills him and proceeds to keep his body and sleep next to it until the day she herself dies. Death comes between the two main relationships Emily has throughout her life, one of them being a natural death and the other being a murder. Death not only haunts Emily through her appearance and relationships, it also haunts her house. Death is often associated with decay, and Emily’s house is described as having “coquettish decay” (1170) and being an extreme eyesore in the neighborhood. Her own house seems to match the slow death and decay that is catching up with her during the story. The final way death affects Emily throughout the story is the way that the townspeople treat her during the death of her loved ones and her own death. When her father dies, the townspeople feel sorry for her and do not want to label her as crazy, for they understand the way her father sheltered her. However, when Emily herself dies, the townspeople seem to treat her as an enigma and surround her funeral with wonder. The narrator describes how the men went out of “respectful affection for a fallen monument” and the women “out of curiosity to see the inside of the house.” (1170) The juxtaposition of their treatment towards her during her father’s death and her own death shows the evolution of them seeing her as a sheltered young girl to the town madwoman who should be seen as a curious object, rather than someone to be mourned. Death consistently follows Emily throughout this story, in her appearance, her relationships, her house, and her ultimate end.

Control is another common theme in the story A Rose for Emily, and it is especially seen in the relationship between Emily and her father. While Emily’s father is never present in any scenes, he is only described in flashbacks and photos, his weight is felt throughout the entire story through the lasting effects he has left on Emily. Wikipedia uses the painting of Emily and her father as evidence of his controlling nature through the way they are positioned in the picture. Emily is “a slender figure in white in the background” and her father is “a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip.”(1173) This position of the two of them shows how Emily’s father consistently places himself in front of Emily, essentially protecting her from other people and controlling her relationships. Emily being dressed in white also adds an essence of innocence to her character in the painting and builds on to the way her father would have seen her. The narrator describes how Emily’s father kept her from having relationships with other men because “none of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily,” (1173) and this painting further drives that point. Emily is not only controlled by her father in the story, she faces control from the strict guidelines placed on her by society. Even through her grief, Emily is expected to remain a proper lady around town and continue to hold up her family name. The townspeople seem to give her a small bit of leeway when she starts her relationship with Homer Barron, at first they are happy that she has found a companion, but once it reaches a level that the townspeople are uncomfortable with her relatives are called into town to put sense into her. She is only allowed to stray from society’s expectations for a little while until she is reigned back in by her cousins. However, in this case Emily fights against the control and stays with Homer Barron, marrying him instead of moving on like her cousins wish her to do. However, control continues to affect Emily in her relationship with Homer Barron, but this time she is the one exerting an abuse of control. When it becomes clear to her that Homer Barron is not planning on staying with her as she wants, she takes the matter into her own hands and kills him, essentially controlling the end of his life. This shows the cycle of control exhibited in the story that starts with the control from Emily’s father over her and ends with Emily herself being the abusive controller. Control is a common theme throughout the story because of the way certain characters exhibit control over others and the impact that control has on the future relationships of characters.