Emily Grierson - Wikipedia Emily Grierson This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. ( Learn how and when to remove these template messages ) The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia 's notability guideline for biographies. Please help to establish notability by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond its mere trivial mention. If notability can not be established, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. Find sources : `` Emily Grierson '' -- news newspapers books scholar JSTOR ( March 2012 ) This article may be in need of reorganization to comply with Wikipedia 's layout guidelines. Please help by editing the article to make improvements to the overall structure. ( March 2012 ) This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia 's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can. ( March 2012 ) Emily Grierson, also referred to Miss Emily in the text, is the main character of the short story `` A Rose for Emily '' by William Faulkner. Miss Emily is described as `` a small, fat woman '' who lived within a modernizing town full of people who saw her as a very cold, very distant woman who lived in her past. Throughout the story, she is referred to by her fellow townspeople as a tradition, a duty, and a care, and is portrayed as a very mean, stubborn old woman. However, as her story unfolds, Faulkner wants readers to sympathize with her because of the amount of loss that she 's had to cope with throughout her life. Contents 1 Character 2 Miss Emily 's Father 3 Emily Grierson 's Home 4 The Tragedies in Miss Emily 's Life 4.1 Death of Her Father 4.2 Disappearance of Her Fiancé 4.3 Patriarchal chauvinism 4.4 Puritan womanhood 4.5 Conflict between community and individual 5 Psychoanalysis of Miss Emily 's Character 6 Notes 7 References Character Miss Emily is a `` hereditary obligation upon the town '' in which she lived. The townspeople find themselves looking after her after her father 's death. Miss Emily is often misunderstood because she is portrayed as being incapable of being alone while also exhibiting a sense of authority over the town by disregarding the laws of which they live by. For example, not paying her taxes, not putting numbers on her mailbox for the federal mail service, not telling the druggist why she needed arsenic, and parading around town with Homer Barron. After purchasing the arsenic the townspeople thought she was going to kill herself, but being the misunderstood character that she is, Miss Emily has other plans. Miss Emily 's physical appearance also displays her deeper character. The way that Faulkner portrays her external changes is parallel to how she internally changes. Miss Emily 's actions cause readers to view her in a different connotation : a way in which is cautious and apprehensive as a result of her radical behaviors towards the end of her life. Readers will find themselves feeling sympathetic towards Miss Emily in the beginning but much less for her in the end of the story because of her sinister actions and questionable character. Miss Emily 's character symbolizes the fall of the chivalric American South as the industrial, modern South begins to rise The description of the decay of both herself and the house slowing becoming `` decaying eyesores '' add to the imagery of things associated with Miss Emily. These things help show how the surroundings are advancing and Miss Emily, the symbol of the classic South, is stubborn and does not want change. Her character is described as `` bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water... her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough ''. The reoccurring reminder that Miss Emily is stuck in the past symbolizes that the South is not ready to industrialize and let go of its classic ways. Miss Emily 's father Miss Emily had a father who sought to stifle Emily with his rules, regulations, and demands. This was apparent when Miss Emily was `` thirty and... still single. '' He believed that no one in town was good enough for Miss Emily and she had to be protected from dishonor and those beneath her. The town `` had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her clutching a horsewhip. '' Despite Mr. Grierson ruling a huge aspect of Emily 's life, it was clear that Miss Emily truly loved and cared for him when he died. `` The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house... as is... custom Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual... with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. '' Miss Emily proceeded to do this for three days until `` she broke down, and they buried her father quickly. '' This passion and love for her father contributed to the impact that loss had on her heart in the future. Emily Grierson 's home Emily lives in Jefferson, Mississippi. Her home `` was a big, squarish frame house '', and she did not have to pay taxes on it. Colonel Sartoris ' decided to allow her to be waived from taxes after the death of her father. The home was described as one `` that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies. '' As the town began to modernize, `` only Miss Emily 's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps - an eyesore among eyesores. '' The house `` smelled of dust and disuse -- a close, dank smell, '' and `` was furnished in heavy, leather - covered furniture. '' As the people in the community move around her house, `` a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun - ray. '' At one point, the townspeople also complained of a mysterious odor coming from her house. They later on find that this odor was coming from the body of Homer Barron, whom was dead and decaying in the house. This home held the body of Homer in a room that was locked up for several years, which was not discovered until the death of Miss Emily, when people began to look through her home. The tragedies in Miss Emily 's life Death of her father Many people found that when Miss Emily 's father died, `` at last they could pity Miss Emily. '' `` Being left alone, and a pauper '' Miss Emily was now completely alone in this new and quite foreign society. She feared being alone because her father who was once always there was no longer and she did n't have a companion to fall back on after `` all the young men her father had driven away. '' Disappearance of her fiancé After overcoming the pain that resulted from the death of her father and the relinquishing of his body, Miss Emily eventually found hope in a prospective companion of hers. Many people in the town believed that she would marry a man named Homer Barron who had just moved into their town. But when it was discovered that Homer was not a marrying man, despite his current engagement to Miss Emily, he suddenly disappeared, and the townspeople believed he had moved away. Miss Emily would now be alone again. The townspeople noticed that she stopped coming out of her house and would eventually `` fall ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a doddering Negro man to wait on her. '' x5 / > In that room, the longest kept secret, and the biggest surprise was then found : `` The man himself lay in the bed. '' The greatest shock, however, came not from the rotting body but from what they saw next to this decaying corpse. The people in Miss Emily 's house `` noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. '' After looking closely they then found `` a long strand of iron - gray hair. '' Miss Emily had loved this man, and loved having him in her life. In order to keep him permanently around, she bought poison from a druggist. Many of the people in the community assumed that this poison would be for Miss Emily to kill herself. The community then realized, after coming upon this secret, that this poison was to keep Homer in Miss Emily 's life. One writer, Gary Kriewald, notes that Miss Emily 's `` strategic retreat into the sanctuary of her house after Homer Barron 's ' desertion ' of her is as defiant as it is self - protective, an act of passive resistance directed against a society. '' Patriarchal chauvinism Fang states that, `` Patriarchal chauvinism means that it is the father who enjoys the absolute power in deciding every family affair. '' Fang observes that, `` Emily is dominated by her father even after his death. '' He attempts to explain that Emily is the way that she is because she was `` strongly influenced by her despotic father '' making her `` eccentric and stubborn ''. Emily 's `` father 's absolute control has obstructed Emily 's way to understand the world. '' Puritan womanhood Fang states `` sex discrimination was particularly common in the South. '' He observes, `` women were condemned as the causes of all evil and troubles in the world... framed and judged by norms laid down by men. '' This is another reason why Miss Emily found herself in the frame of mind that she was in. The men in her life never treated her the way that she needed to be treated. As Fang states about Emily, '' She never has her own life, and never controls her fate. '' Fang observes that Emily did not mean to hurt people or scorn people the way that she did. All Miss Emily needed was someone to care for her as all women did in her time. Conflict between community and individual Fang states, `` ( W ) hen the two come into conflict, it surely will cause great confrontation and if the power of the community is strong enough, it often results in the destruction of the individual. '' Readers see throughout the course of the story that the members of the community begrudgingly stay civil with Emily. None of the members of the community truly care for her. They look down on her and her traditional way of life. This creates this conflict for Emily in her life. Psychoanalysis of Miss Emily 's character Emily 's life was spent mostly in isolation, not only physically but emotionally. Her father 's strict, authoritarian parenting style did not let her socialize to meet friends or possible love interests. Once her father passed, Emily felt the loneliest she was in her life, since her father was all she had. She was not close with her townspeople, and constantly was not approved of. When Homer went missing, she once again felt that loneliness. It is suggested that Miss Emily 's loneliness caused her to become a stubborn person, which would explain her constant refusal to pay taxes on her home in Jefferson. It is evident that Miss Emily suffered psychological trauma from her relationship with her father, which suggests why she acted the way she did later on in her life, keeping the body of her fiancé after he died. It is possible that Miss Emily suffered from Necrophilia, since she felt so connected still to Homer ; enough to keep his body for several years after death. She wanted to be happy with Homer for the rest of her life, could not handle the rejection, so she killed him with poison, and kept his body in her home. Her refusal to give up her father 's body for days after his death, then keeping Homer 's for years suggests that she feels that she is too stubborn to let go, and that she feels that she can still have a connection with them even after death. Notes ^ Jump up to : ( 1 ), Faulkner, William, section I. Jump up ^ `` Academia.edu Log In ''. www.academia.edu. Retrieved 2017 - 11 - 27. ^ Jump up to : Community, The ENH ; Fyrooz, Binte. `` CHARACTERISTICS OF MISS EMILY IN `` A ROSE FOR EMILY '' ``. ^ Jump up to : ( 2 ), Faulkner, William, section II. Jump up ^ `` Analyze the effects that Mr. Grierson had on his daughter, Emily, throughout the short story `` A Rose for Emily. '' ``. ^ Jump up to : ( 2 ), Faulkner, William, section II. Jump up ^ ( 3 ), Faulkner, William, section III. ^ Jump up to : ( 4 ), Faulkner, William, section IV. ^ Jump up to : ( 5 ), Faulkner, William, section V. Jump up ^ Kriewald, Gary ( 2003 ). `` The Widow of Windsor and the spinster of Jefferson : a possible source for Faulkner 's Grierson ''. The Faulkner Journal. 19 ( 1 ) : 3. Retrieved 28 Nov 2011. ^ Jump up to : Du, Fang ( 2010 - 01 - 01 ). `` Who Makes a Devil out of a Fair Lady ? -- An Analysis of the Social Causes of Emily 's Tragedy in A Rose for Emily ''. Canadian Social Science. 3 ( 4 ) : 18 -- 24. ISSN 1923 - 6697. ^ Jump up to : Fang, Du ( 2007 ). `` Who Makes a Devil out of a Fair Lady ? - An Analysis of the Social Causes of Emily 's Tragedy in A Rose for Emily ''. Canadian Social Science. 3 ( 4 ) : 18 -- 24. Retrieved November 26, 2011. References Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. Kirk, Robert W. ; Klotz, Marvin ( 1965 ). Faulkner 's People : A complete guide and index to the characters and fiction of William Faulkner. Los Angeles : University of California Press. William Faulkner Bibliography Novels Soldiers ' Pay ( 1926 ) Mosquitoes ( 1927 ) Sartoris / Flags in the Dust ( 1929 / 1973 ) The Sound and the Fury ( 1929 ) As I Lay Dying ( 1930 ) Sanctuary ( 1931 ) Light in August ( 1932 ) Pylon ( 1935 ) Absalom, Absalom ! ( 1936 ) The Unvanquished ( 1938 ) If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem ( 1939 ) The Hamlet ( 1940 ) Intruder in the Dust ( 1948 ) Requiem for a Nun ( 1951 ) A Fable ( 1954 ) The Town ( 1957 ) The Mansion ( 1959 ) The Reivers ( 1962 ) Short story collections These 13 ( 1931 ) Go Down, Moses ( 1942 ) Knight 's Gambit ( 1949 ) Collected Stories ( 1950 ) Short stories `` Landing in Luck '' ( 1919 ) `` A Rose for Emily '' ( 1930 ) `` Red Leaves '' ( 1930 ) `` Dry September '' ( 1931 ) `` Spotted Horses '' ( 1931 ) `` That Evening Sun '' ( 1931 ) `` Mountain Victory '' ( 1932 ) `` Barn Burning '' ( 1939 ) `` The Tall Men '' ( 1941 ) `` Shingles for the Lord '' ( 1943 ) Screenplays Flesh ( 1932 ) Today We Live ( 1933 ) Submarine Patrol ( 1938 ) Children 's books The Wishing Tree ( 1927 ) Related William Clark Falkner ( great - grandfather ) Rowan Oak home Papers and manuscripts William Faulkner Foundation Yoknapatawpha County Compson family Louis Grenier Ikkemotubbe Gavin Stevens Thomas Sutpen Snopes trilogy Southern Renaissance Faux Faulkner contest PEN / Faulkner Award for Fiction Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emily_Grierson&oldid=823685532 '' Categories : William Faulkner characters Fictional characters introduced in 1930 Fictional hermits Necrophilia in fiction Fictional murderers Hidden categories : Articles with topics of unclear notability from March 2012 All articles with topics of unclear notability Wikipedia articles needing reorganization from March 2012 Articles needing cleanup from March 2012 All pages needing cleanup Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field from March 2012 Wikipedia pages needing cleanup from March 2012 Articles with multiple maintenance issues Talk Contents About Wikipedia Add links This page was last edited on 2 February 2018, at 19 : 42. 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Question: physical description of emily in a rose for emily
Answer: “a small, fat woman”