Emily Grierson Character Analysis From The Story: "A Rose For Emily"

Emily Grierson Character Analysis from the story: "A Rose for Emily".

“A Rose for Emily” is a short story by American author William Faulkner first published in the April 30, 1930 issue of Forumnational magazine. Under a particular narrative and an interspersed chronological order of events the author presents the dark and mysterious life story of Emily Grierson. This darkness and mysterysurrounding the protagonist will be studied by a character analysis that will make a broader framework about her personality.

Emily always retains the attention of her town. She seems like aninvulnerable being, nothing seems to affect her or shake her, but within that "impervious" personality there is the story of a girl who had her illusion of marriage, to be loved and to be desiredcastrated. Emily was a woman whose father avoided every opportunity for her to know love. He set her up for a way of life that was impossible for her to escape. He controlled her completely until herdeath. It was probably this event in her life, the inability of her to know love what hardened her personality and made her the dark being she was.

Emily's first appearance in the story does notrespond to the great expectation of an elegant, proud and fragile lady. In its place is an obese short woman, pale-skinned and dead eyes. She is dressed in black and the only symbols of splendor are a thingold chain and an ebony cane with an opaque gold handle. Her former residence inspires a feeling of melancholy and reflects her personal, family and community significance. The faded and ruinedmansion is a projection of her own image of suffering.

Emily lives in the past, with strong barriers to accepting the present. It is clear that for her time does not pass; it does not exist. Shewas perhaps stopped the day her father died, when her insanity surfaced for the first time, by refusing to accept the beginning of reality, a life of complete solitude. She has the pathological...