This story gave me the chills but I like stories with gothic
feels to it. The way the author dragged on this mystery and his foreshadowing
built up suspense. Which is always great in stories. It was hard to stop
reading. I initially felt pity for Emily because she was lonely and wanted
nothing more but to be loved.
Faulkner portrays the negative psychological effects a man can have over a woman by using his
characters Emily and her father. All her life Emily was never allowed to be
with men because of her over bearing father. The only man in her life was her
father, and when he died she had trouble letting him go. Any sane person would
not keep their father's dead body in the house for three whole days. The way
her father raised her resulted in her having difficulty of letting go of the
past and people. It was no wonder why she killed her lover Homer. She was a
afraid to lose another man in her life and if she kept his dead body he would
never leave her. In a sick and twisted way Emily could be loved forever. Emily was
psychologically abused by her father and resulted in her insidious behavior.
I love the
way Faulkner puts imagery in describing Emily and her father, "Miss Emily
a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette
in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them
framed by the back-flung front door." The white to me symbolizes a pure soul &
innocence, the silhouette of her father is something dark, evil and mysterious.
Also the fact that he is in front of her shows that he wants no other man
getting to his daughter.
My question
for you is do you blame Emily for the way she acted?
I agree with you on liking stories with a gothic feel to them. In answer to your question though, I both blame her and not blame her. See for me I saw her gain freedom and independence after her father’s death and she didn’t want to lose that freedom when she married Homer. From my point of view if she didn’t want to lose her independence that bad instead of killing him she could have not married him. At the same time I get that she did truly love him and didn’t want to let him go. I do pity her for all the abuse that caused her to become so demented in thinking that this was her only course of action but I also believe that we all need to be held accountable for the things we do. Especially after reading the part when she was buying the arsenic, I felt she was doing it for more malice reasons then she was afraid of being controlled by another man.
ReplyDeleteI don't blame her because her father had a major affect on her. He had total control of her. She was basically trapped. She could not have gone against what her father said because he made the decisions, he was the man. After his death Emily was basically left with nothing other than a big lonely house and money. It was then when i she started making her own decisions. She obviously didn't care about status because the author mentions Homer to be considered lower class than her. She still fell in love with him but for some reason he was about to leave her. All she wanted was love and so I think she decided to murder him just so she could keep him close. I think she though she might still feel affection from the dead body. I think the feelings of being lonely and rejected lead her to murder Homer.
ReplyDeleteI'll start by answering your question. Emily can not be held at complete fault in this situation. The implied abuse by her father was almost giving away the end of the story. Any woman or man for that matter could not turn out "normal" after the treatment she may have endured. The way Faulkner wrote this story only really focused on the view of the outsider but I find myself wondering, what if we saw it from the fathers perspective? What if Emily was born with a mental illness that because of her familys status, was never brought up or treated? Her father could have been her keeper. The gothic feeling you mentioned, seemes to be intentional and speaks to the old world feeling of the story further playing into lack of knowledge about mental illness. Just a thought. Good response.
ReplyDeleteStories with Gothic feels are the best! To answer your question, partially. Human morality is a complicated subject. She murdered a man. That's just terrible. But her upbringing may have warped her mind not to know any better. Maybe it didn't matter to her whether the man was alive or dead, she needed him.
ReplyDeleteThat question reminds me of an excerpt from Hamlet
"What I have done,
That might your nature, honour and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet:
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it. Who does it, then? His madness"
Is it her, or her madness that is to blame here?
To answer your question, I don't think she is FULLY responsible for the blame, but she does have her faults, too. I like how you emphasized the author's use of imagery to discuss the relationship of emily and her father. I agree to your idea that the story has that gothic feel and that all the details were made to create the illusion of the dark world. I also agree when you said that the author touched on the idea of negative psychological effects I found it horrific how someone could kill just for him to stay with her forever.
ReplyDelete