A Rose For Emily
The first character that I have chosen to talk about is Emily Grierson. She is the protagonist character from the story "A Rose for Emily". The author begins the story with Miss Emily's funeral, where the men see her as a "fallen monument" and the women are anxious to see the inside of her house. He gives us a picture of a women who is frail because she has "fallen", yet as important and symbolic as a monument". Miss Emily lives for many years as a loner, someone who has withdrawn from a community to live in isolation. "No visitor had passed since she ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier". The author also contributes to the development of Miss Emily's personality through the introduction of her father, Homer Barron, and Miss Emily's great Aunt who all influence her maturity and experience of life. The primary figure in Miss Emily's life is her father. The author uses this relationship to reveal Miss Emily's reserved nature. Because her father is an upper class figure, some of his ways of thinking has ruined her life. Miss Emily has always been kept in confined environments that only her father knows what she will do. The event of her father's death is a shock to Miss Emily because the guidance of her father is gone. This explains Miss Emily's behavior after her father's death as well as her reaction to another character, Homer Barron. He is the first lower-class person to reach Miss Emily after her father's death. While Miss Emily is still distressed by her father's death, Homer's affection brings Miss Emily out of her grief. Homer Barron therefore frees Miss Emily from her reserved nature. However, the news that Homer Barron is leaving town for another women pushes Miss Emily to the edge of insanity, While Miss Emily's father and Homer Barron influences Miss Emily to have the confused personality she does, Faulkner also suggests her insane behavior may be inherited. The insanity of Miss Emily's great aunt, old lady Wyatt,...
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