Themes Part 2

             One strong theme that I noticed in A Rose for Emily is the theme of change, and often being resistant to change. Throughout the story, Emily resists almost every moment of change that becomes present in her life. The first example of Emily resisting change comes in the second paragraph of the story when Emily’s neighborhood is described as ever evolving and her house was still “lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay….and eyesore among eyesores” (1170). Emily refuses to participate in the changes of the neighborhood and lets her house fall into disarray, rather than updating it to match the rest. This point is reiterated later in the story when Emily “refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it” (1176). Yet again, Emily is making it clear that she is refusing to be involved in the changing ways of the town and she would much rather stay as she is. 

One of the biggest moments of change, and resisting change, for Emily is when her father dies. After her father dies, Emily refuses to let anyone in her house to collect the body and she shows no sadness for several days. She is “dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face” (1173) telling everyone that he is not dead. The townspeople almost have to resort to using the law and force before she finally breaks down and lets them take him away. This is a strong moment of her resisting change because death is the one thing that can change a life the most and she completely refutes it. She is in utter denial and does not leave that state for three days. This sense of denying the change of being left alone continues later into Emily’s life after the death of Homer Barron. It is revealed at the end of the story that Homer Barron is dead when he is found in the upstairs room of Emily’s house, partially decayed and surrounded by the things she bought for him decades before. Everything in the room is covered in dust, such as the collar and tie that looked “as if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust” (1177). The room is still “decked and furnished as for a bridal” (1177) and it is clear that Emily has not moved anything since she killed Homer Barron to force him to stay with her. She was so scared of another change, of another man leaving her, that she killed him before he could and kept their room as a seeming memorial. This resistance to change and forcing him to stay is proven through the gray hair found on the pillow next to his body that shows Emily has been sleeping next to his corpse, as if she were ignoring the change in his decomposing corpse and acting as if he was still alive and with her.

             William Faulkner is showing through this theme that when a person goes through a traumatic or life changing experience, they often become resistant to change, which can lead to drastic impacts on their life. Emily is young and very sheltered when her father dies and she doesn't know how to go on for a time. Her father was all she ever knew and she is refusing to accept his death and the fact that she is now alone. This refusal of acceptance continues later in her life with Homer Barron, where the traumatic experience from her youth finds a way to repeat itself in his death. Once again she is faced with the possibility of someone leaving her so she acts first and makes it so she can keep everything the same forever. This resistance is not always shown in dramatic ways, it is also shown in the small ways that Emily refuses to change her house or update the way she lives to fit with the rest of the town. Faulkner shows Emily’s constant rebuttal of change slowly grow more and more intense as she grows older until she reaches the drastic conclusion of murder. 

              Another theme I saw in A Rose for Emily is the theme of societal judgement through the way in which the townspeople treat Emily. The story is told through the perspective of a townsperson and the reader receives constant descriptions of how the townspeople currently see Emily and her status, but the reader never knows what Emily herself is thinking or feeling, she is seen as a mystery the entire story. The reader sees the townspeople pass judgement on Emily in the first paragraph of the story when people went to her funeral out of “respectful affection for a fallen monument” and “out of curiosity to see the inside of her house” (1170), showing that she was only seen as an object of wonder in the town, rather than an actual person, at the time of her death. However, when the townspeople did see her as a person they usually only viewed her with pity or as indecent. During the times of her father’s death and the horrid smell that surrounded her house, the people of the town “had begun to feel really sorry for her” (1173) and they excused the way she acted in her grief and refused to call her crazy or be unkind. However, that feeling changes once she starts her relationship with Homer Barron, which the townspeople begin to feel is indecent. Some of the town was happy for her, but many thought “that even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse oblige” (1174) and that she had therefore fallen from her high status. In this moment of her relationship building, which was likely the happiest she had been in some time, the townspeople are suddenly looking far down on her and seeing her actions as indecent, they “believed that she was fallen” (1174). It even goes so far as the town calling in Emily’s family to put some sense into her because her actions were “a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people” (1175). Their judgement of Emily comes to a point after they become convinced that she is marrying Homer Barron and they “were glad because the two female cousins were even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been” (1175). This statement shows that in the town’s eyes Emily was no longer deserving of her family name and had fallen beneath it with her actions and that her cousins were now her superiors.

    All of these instances show the town’s evolution of their judgement towards Emily and her actions. They attempt to excuse her strange behavior at first and and blame it on the grief she is feeling over her father, but over time they defend her actions less and less and become less accommodating. This is clearly shown through her relationship with Homer Barron and the way it is at first accepted but then completely turned against once the town realizes how serious it has become. Faulkner is showing through this theme that society is quick to pass judgement on a person, even if that person is in a high position, and especially if that person does something they deem to be indecent. He is showing the extent to which society can adapt a hive mind mentality and believe that it can try to control or “fix” how a person leads their lives, as the townspeople are trying to “fix” Emily.