Emily's defiance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Emilys defiance - Essay ExampleAlthough the protagonist in the floor, Miss Emily may come out outwardly unruffled and reserved in the confines of her home, her blatant rebellious personal to her familys wishes and her communities serves as a subtle symbol for the gradual decline and eventual decay of Americans grey aristocracy at the end of the Civil War. Miss Emily finds it hard to come to terms with the idea of death. Consequently, she suffers a great deal of denial. After her fathers death, the townspeople anticipated her to be grieved but regrettably she is not. She told the visitors her father was not dead (Faulkner 2162). Instead, she stated that her father was still alive. From the story, it is clear that grieving is better than ignoring it. The story happens in the South, during a period characterized by radical political change and racial discrimination. Emilys eccentric and inconsistent behavior becomes outright peculiar. Like the townspeople, oneness is left wondering how she would live and sleep with Homer Barrons corpse for years on end. At first, the townspeople never thought she suffered from mental illness they did not say she was crazy (Faulkner 2162). However, as the story comes to an end, it becomes clear that she was not thinking straight. It is reasonable to state that Emily developed this state as a solvent to the challenging conditions she underwent as a Southern woman from an aristocratic background. As it appears, she was not able to develop strong and adaptive defensive mechanism to back up her cope with life. In detail, Miss Emily was from a family endowed with enormous wealth and stature in their little Southern community yet she had always been burdened with the immense expectations that the society had of her. The community power saw her as possessing a hereditary obligation (Faulkner 2160) to keep up with certain traditions, which had been instituted numerous generations before her. Her father had the law to transmit su ch values and traditions. Nonetheless, he was rigid in the way he reinforced these expectations. As the narrator states, as a man he had thwarted her womans life so many times (Faulkner 2164). For instance, he chased all of Emilys suitors away because he never saw one that was good enough for his daughter. Consequently, she never married. Despite her fathers oppressiveness, Miss Emilys mental state declines even the more. As the narrator states, Emily became throw up for a long time (Faulkner 2162). This is the time that Emily starts to avoid contact with the community. The townspeople also do not confront Emily about any essential issues, for instance, the flagitious smell that emanates from her home. The smell was becoming detached, superseded, and forbidding (Ruthmann 87) each day. The novel generation of townspeople wants to support the idea that they confront Miss Emily directly but suppose Stevens forbids it by saying, will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad? (Fa ulkner 2162). He though the smell was a body odor. The young generation gives in, and those responsible for such concerns sneak into the ladys basement surreptitiously to eliminate the odor by spreading lime. To conclude, it is clear that although Miss Emily may appear outwardly quiet and reserved in the confines of her home, her blatant rebellious personal to her familys wishes and her communities serves as a