William Faulkner, one of the most
famed writers of our times, explores in his writing the themes of alienation
and isolation. He interweaves these themes with his female characters. In A
Rose for Emily, Miss Emily Grierson is a woman who is alienated and lives in
isolation from the people in her town. The theme of isolation is the focal
point of the story, since it is what drove her to her madness.
Faulkner's theme of alienation comes up
many times in his writing. In the book The Major Years, Melvin Backman states
that Faulkner was reaching for a more decent life and more decent people in the
midst of evil. He was reaching for love, innocence, simplicity, and strength,
but he also knew that these things were being hidden by reality. "With
Faulkner, as with all men, the personal condition underlay and shaped his view
of the human condition" (Backman, p.183).
The critic goes on to note that men
in Faulkner's works tend to undermine women and their roles in society. Women
are oppressed and are usually controlled by men. The women try to fight the men
in their society and are trying to find a way to escape from their grasps. They
are hesitant to stand up to the men and instead they tend to hide away. Backman
notes that, "The will to confront reality seems to be losing out to the
need to escape"(p.184).
Miss Emily is a woman who had the
whole town wondering what she was doing, but did not allow anyone the pleasure
of finding out. Once the men that she cared about in life deserted her, either
by death or by simply leaving her, she hid out and did not allow anyone to get
close to her. Miss Emily was indeed afraid to confront the reality that Backman
discusses. Since she did not want to accept the fact that the people she cared
about were gone, she hid in her house and did not go out. She was the perfect
example of a woman alienated by a society controlled by men who make trouble for
her instead of helping her.
Minrose Gwin, author of The Feminine
and Faulkner, states that several of Faulkner's female characters, including
Emily Grierson, are "indeed active disruptive subjects in their
narratives; theirs are voices which denounce and subvert male power"(Gwin,
p.8). They do what they do , such as killing Homer Barron in Emily's case,
because they are tired of men telling them what to do.
Gwin further states that the
patriarchal world creates its own images of women. Emily tried to challenge
these images by not being what the men in her society would consider
"normal." The men felt that all women should tend to their homes and
be sociable, not locked up in a house with a manservant to clean it. They also felt
that it was not right for a man to be doing that kind of work; it was a woman's
job to clean the house. " 'Just as if a man-any man-could keep a kitchen
properly,' the ladies said; so they were not surprised when the smell
developed. It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high
and mighty Griersons"(p.26).
Backman, paraphrasing Wright Morris
in The Territory Ahead, says that flight and nostalgia are essential to
American life, "The American flees the raw and uncongenial present for a
mythic and desired past"(Backman, p.185). This perfectly summarizes
Emily's character because she is trying to leave the present and go back to a
happier past. She is attempting to recapture her past because she needs to find
the love she once knew. "After her father's death she went out very
little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all"(p.
26). Emily alienated herself from anyone when the two people that once loved
her went away. She was afraid to grow close to anyone in fear of losing them
again.
Emily was a headstrong woman that
seemed frail and weak, but was instead very strong. She had the whole town
convinced that she could not hurt a fly, but instead she was capable of the
worst of crimes, murder.
"Faulkner's works convey a deep
sense of oppression and withdrawal, yet they convey too the struggle with self
and society. In the midst of defeat and despair a small center of resistance
resides"(Backman, p.186). Emily, in the middle of all the alienation and isolation
she felt from the residents of her town, also found the resistance to show them
she was not someone to be taken lightly.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Backman, Melvin.
Faulkner: The Major Years, A Critical Study. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1966
Faulkner,
William. "A Rose for Emily." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction,
Poetry, and Drama. Ed.
X.J. Kennedy. New York: Harpers Collins, 1991.
Pp. 24-31
Gwin, Minrose c.
The Femenine and Faulkner: Reading (Beyond) Sexual Difference. Knoxville: The
University of Tennessee Press, 1990
Morris, Wright.
The Territory Ahead. The Macmillan Company, 1957.
No comments:
Post a Comment