Editor's note: "Ashi" is a nickname, not a typo.
Among naturalistic stories, William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” is one of the most grotesque in its study of human nature; it seems almost like a nightmarish parable. The sole survivor of the Southern aristocracy, Emily Grierson, wears many hats: eccentric recluse, arrogant heiress, hardened criminal, childish adult. She lives in a demented world that is permanently encapsulated in her strange notions of life, death, and reality. For her denial and hubris, Emily Grierson is to be pitied, though she dislikes pity or acts of charity.
Miss Emily continues on the path of denial because it is all she knows. Having learned it from her father, she now denies that he is dead, and that Homer Barron has departed. In analyzing her character, it is evident that she is the absolute queen of denial. What could we glean from her? Emily Grierson, by default, holds her head inordinately high. Even when others whisper, “Poor Emily” and think she has fallen, she inexplicably keeps her swaggering chin up. She expects that others recognize her as the last Grierson and treat her like royalty.
In addition, she requires special privileges from the government. When new aldermen attempted to hold her accountable for her tax responsibilities, she fought tooth and nail to have them remitted. The old mayor, Colonel Sartoris, had previously remitted these duties for her. According to a lie he once told her, the late Mr. Grierson paid a significant sum to the government. By virtue of being a Grierson, Miss Emily was excused from paying taxes. By virtue of being the last Grierson, it seems, Miss Emily considers herself excused from all of the normal expectations of life. She is a living symbol of pride.
Though an aristocrat, Miss Emily is an expert criminal. At the pharmacist's store, she repeatedly demands, “I want arsenic” and “I want some poison” in an eerily firm tone. To intimidate the pharmacist even more, she menacingly stares at him with “haughty black eyes.” Through the power of fear, she beats the pharmacist at his own game, obtaining the arsenic she wants without stating its purpose. After several happy meetings with Homer Barron, he suddenly disappears one night and does not return (foreshadowed by her purchase of arsenic). Concealing her crime, she stores his body in an upstairs room and lives a life of seclusion. To prevent people from becoming too suspicious, she offers china-painting lessons. Within a few years, her pupils stop coming, and she permanently shuts her doors. When the government sends her tax notices, she neglects them rather cavalierly; the notices are returned unclaimed.
Just as constant dropping wears away a stone, so Miss Emily wears out the government officials. Her taxes get remitted eventually, but only because the aldermen have given up on her. She always sends Tobe, the servant, in and out with a market basket; this is normally not a suspicious thing, but he is always involved somehow in her criminality. Tobe is the one she sent to invite Homer Barron inside on his last night alive; he is also the scapegoat for the foul smell (other women, assuming a man cannot keep a kitchen remotely clean, blame him for the stench instead of Emily herself). Tobe runs all or most of Emily's errands because she could get arrested if she were seen in public after killing Homer Barron.
With her careful planning, Miss Emily may think herself a rather majestic criminal, and Tobe a royal henchman. She denies the power of the law to stop her. Miss Emily may be a grown woman, but she is as stubborn as a small child. She will never accept the forces of change. Although her father has long been deceased, she still keeps his portrait and acts under his influence. At the time of his death, she was adamantly denying the very fact that he was dead. She only reluctantly permitted his burial, and only after vague threats of law and force. Whenever she loses someone close to her (her father or an admirer, for instance), she perpetually spirals into an abnormally long, brooding depression after first denying the loss. After waiting years for an admirer that her father would not send away, she found Homer Barron and fell in love with him. Because of her father's long pattern of denying her a husband, she did not know how to behave toward Barron. Her father's denial shaped her own, and Emily murdered Barron because of it.
However, she will not realize the gravity of her actions. Barron's rotting corpse and ruined gifts are tucked away in her moldy room, and Emily spends the rest of her life in pensive seclusion because of him. She denies that he is dead, that she is wicked, that reality is in flux, and (most of all) that there is anything she can do about her vice. In truth, she is the queen of denial.
In “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner's queen of denial cannot analyze her own condition. Nevertheless, she conveys meaningful insights about human nature, particularly through the themes of pride, denial, and change. Are we too prideful? Is there something important that we are denying persistently? Are there secrets we hate, but need to admit now? Is it time for us to let go of something? While most people are highly unlikely to become criminals over small things, they could possibly learn from Miss Emily when they struggle with the more common foibles of pride and denial. In naturalistic stories, even the most wicked of characters can stir an audience to self-examination.
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