CRITICISM OF CRITICISM: THE DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF

FAULKNERS A ROSE FOR EMILY

Trabalho exigido para o encerramento da disciplina

de Introduo ao Conto do curso de Letras da
Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Cincias Humanas
da Universidade de So Paulo.

Professora: Mayumi Ilari

So Paulo
2015

CRITICISM OF CRITICISM: THE DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF

FAULKNERS A ROSE FOR EMILY

1. About the story

William Faulkners A Rose for Emily is a short story about a
woman who lives in Jefferson, Missouri, southern USA, between the years of 1920-30.
She is the sole heir of an aristocratic father, whose wealth had seen its greatest glory
fade away and now corresponded to the house that was left for Miss Emily after his
death. In fact, Miss Emily was so devastated after her fathers death that she would not
let go of his body for three days until she finally broke down and the city authorities
hurried into her house to bury the body immediately.
Her father was very controlling and authoritarian, and had driven
away every single one of her suitors which might explain the fact that she was still
single at age 30. However, some time past his death, a man called Homer Baron came to
Jefferson from the North and seemed to take interest in her, taking her to ride with him
in his yellow-wheeled buggy around town. The townsfolk speculated about their
engagement, although they seemed not to approve it, since he came from the North.
At one point in the story, Miss Emily decides to buy arsenic. When
confronted by the druggist as to for which purpose she intended to buy the poison, she
refused to answer. And, after insisting poorly, the druggist allowed her to buy it in spite
of lack of justification and the townspeople again speculated that she intended to kill
herself.
After a while, Miss Emily is visited by some of her cousins, and
Homer Baron leaves town but returns right after the cousins leave again. And that is
the last he is seen by the townsfolk. After Homer Barons return, Miss Emily would no
longer leave the house, which at one point started to smell and to disturb her neighbors.
The townspeople turned to the citys authorities in search for a solution, but all they
were able to decide was to secretly enter into her property one night and sprinkle lime
around the house. The smell was gone after a few days.

For a period of six or seven years, Miss Emily gave china-painting

lessons to children. But, after a while, there were no more students interested in learning
how to paint china and so once and for all the doors or the Griersons house was closed.
She grew fat, her hair became iron gray and she was never again seen until her death
many years later.
After she was decently buried, people from the town got into her
house and discovered Homer Barons dead body (or skeleton) lying on a bed upstairs,
the room all furnished for a bridal, and a long strand of Miss Emilys iron-gray hair
lying on the pillow beside him.

2. New Criticism: a story of horror

Once the summary of the story has been given above, we may now
analyze the different interpretations that have been made about it. The first one, based
on the formalist movement known as New Criticism (which took place in the United
States during the 1920s), states that A Rose for Emily constitutes a story of horror,
and seeks to explain the reasons for which this story may be regarded as a high quality
story of horror.
This particular line of interpretation does not take into account the
historical context of the story (e.g., the historical conflict between the American North
and South, or the way women were seen at the time etc.) i.e., it interprets the text
within itself, by means of a close reading technique.
Although

this

particular

analysis

emphasizes

Miss

Emilys

pathological character (e.g., her isolation, her difficulty in distinguishing illusion and
reality, life and death etc.), it states that the meaningfulness of this short story does not
lie thereupon, but on the horror/monstrosity of Miss Emilys final act itself.
Also, this interpretation emphasizes her tremendous firmness of will
(e.g., in the matter of taxes, in the matter of her purchase of the poison) in addition to
her contempt for public opinion and refusal to admit an external set of codes which
contradict her own will.

Furthermore, for this author, the community saw her both as an idol
and a scapegoat it admired her (for she represented the past of the community, of
which the community is proud) and, at the same time, feel pity for her, as they feel
superior to her and her queer, aristocratic and old-fashioned ways. And, indeed, the
fact that Miss Emily is from aristocratic descent and believes to be better than others
makes her feel she is above and outside their canons of behavior and, at the same time,
it makes her feel that she can be worse than other people. In spite of that, however, she
remains somehow admirable. Her independence and pride, in spite of turning her into a
monster, have the ability of giving her an image of dignity and courage. She would not
let herself be pitied by others.
According to this line of interpretation, the fact that she was mad is a
result of the development of her pride and refusal to submit to ordinary standards of
behavior. Thus, her madness is not merely a psychological/medical issue, but it involves
issues that are really important and have to do with the world of conscious moral
choice. Also, the community interprets her madness as meaningful. In spite of her
refusals to let herself be pitied, the community admires her and her ability to carry her
own values to their ultimate conclusion.
Ultimately, in accordance with this particular analysis of the story, the
reason for which A Rose for Emily is a good short story is due to the fact that it
contains the basic elements which make the great tragedies such as Hamlet and King
Lear; Miss Emilys pride, isolation, independence remind one of factors in the
character of the typical tragic hero.

3. Sociological Criticism
Our second analysis of the story takes on a sociological point of view
and gives a particular emphasis on the sexual conflict presented by the story.
Indeed, according to this interpretation, the grotesque aspects of the
story are a result of the violation of the expectations generated by the conventions of
sexual politics. Fort this author, the storys ending shocks us not only because it
implies a hint of necrophilia; but mostly due to the fact that it is a woman who
provides the hint. According to this interpretation of the text, it is not expected by the

reader that a woman would murder a man and this is what actually makes this ending
so grotesque. In fact, this particular author understands that Faulkner has not thus
invoked the grotesque with the mere purpose of causing cheap thrill, but, instead, he
has done it with the purpose of illuminating and defining the true nature of the
conventions on which it [the grotesque] depends.
According to this interpretation, A rose for Emily is not a story
about the conflict between the South and the North, or between the old order and the
new, but about the patriarchy that existed in North and South, old and new, and the
sexual conflict that lied within it. It is the story of a woman victimized and betrayed by
the system of sexual politics, who nevertheless has discovered, within the structures that
victimize her, sources of powers for herself. () a demonstration of the thesis that it is
impossible to oppress without in turn being oppressed.
While alive, and as a lady, Emily was seen as town property and
was subject to the towns speculations and gossip; once dead, however, she eventually
came to be seen as town history and, ultimately, a legend. Thus, according to this
authors understanding, what Emily was actually reflected the culture that had produced
her. The perverse, violent, and grotesque aspects of Homer Barrons rotted corpse in a
room entirely furnished for a bridal would reflect the perverseness of the towns own
prurient interest in Emily, the violence implicit in their continued invasions of her life,
and the grotesqueness of the symbolic artifact they have made of her their monument,
their idol, their lady. In fact, according to the author, Emilys isolation is in direct
proportion to the towns obsession with her.
Also, her relation with her father is seen as an essential aspect of the
story. The image he has made of her, or from his house, are inescapable to her just as
she cannot escape from her status as a lady, which has been imposed to her by the town.
Ultimately, according to this interpretation of the story, the fact that she is a lady
corresponds to the biggest violence perpetrated against her throughout the whole story.
Deprived from her suitors by her father, subjected to the towns obsession and incessant
scrutiny, she has been imposed a code of behavior a ladys code of behavior which
she cannot live up to which, in turn, gives the townspeople an excuse to constantly
interfere in her life.

Also, according to this authors interpretation, the former mayors act

of exempting Miss Emily from taxes actually constitutes an offense, since it states that
a lady, if she is to survive, must have either husband or father, and that, because Emily
had neither, the town must assume responsibility for her.
Furthermore, this author also understands that the narrator also acts
with violence against Emily, since, although condemning the ladies who spy, pry and
gossip about Emily, he does so based on the idea that Miss Emily is exempted from the
general indictment because she is a real lady that is, eccentric, slightly crazy, obsolete,
() dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse; indeed, anything and
everything but human.
Nevertheless, this author also believes that the story shows not only
the violence against Emily, but a particular form of power she as a victim gains from
this position and can use on whose who enact such violence. While the narrator and the
patriarchal community in which they live do not see her but their own concept of her,
according to this interpretation, Miss Emily uses this fact as an instrument to get what
she wants as she does with the taxes and with the poison.

4. Psychoanalytic Criticism
Finally, according to the last interpretation, which constitutes a
psychoanalytical view of Faulkners story, all that has been stated under the
abovementioned interpretations is valid, although they may be best explained from a
psychoanalytic perspective, specifically by means of the unconscious levels of fantasy
and defense mechanisms. Thus, according to this authors view, the conscious themes
explained by the previous interpretations are here explained by exploring the
unconscious themes which underlie them.
The texts starts by analyzing the symbolism of the house
corresponding to Miss Emilys body both of which contained a nasty secret inside
them, dust and darkness and, most strongly, smells.
Later on, it resorts to Freuds anal triad, according to which
orderliness, parsimony and obstinacy all derive from holding on or letting go of feces

in response to outer demands. In Miss Emily, these aspect appear in her firmness of
will, which results in her will to hold on to, e.g., her father and later her boyfriend in
spite of the pressure to let them go. According to this interpretation, this must be the
unconscious core of the story. In this context, to love is to possess someone and,
conversely, to be loved is to become a gift, to be possessed like an object. To die to
give up something precious or dirty is to love and become something precious or
dirty.
There is also an oedipal aspect in this story, which is reflected in her
relationship with her father, a very controlling man who always drives Miss Emilys
suitors away and causes her to be alone even after his death. In fact, Emily identifies
with her father, taking [or incorporating] on his iron will, his strength, his brutality,
regressing from the little girls wish to have her father to the pre-oedipal, phallic with to
be her father. This somewhat explains her choice for Homer Baron, a tabooed figure, a
substitute for her father the original, incestuously forbidden lover.
This author also mentions the fact that the town sharply differentiates
sexes, and stated that this recapitulates the kind of outside control Emily had when her
father was alive. Thus, under this point of view, control is the basic issue of the story.
Miss Emily, like her father, believed in a more primitive kind of government, in which
the law (and its enforcement) depended or relied on the men who were in power, as
opposed to that sort of government in which the law itself supersedes men and survives
in spite of them. In this context, Miss Emily puts her person above the law, as she
refuses to recognize the sheriffs authority or the Board of Aldermans and manages to
put even the law under her own control.
The author also suggests that Miss Emily not only kept Homer
Barons body, but also ate his flesh in an anthropophagical act which reflected her wish
to incorporate him (orally) as well as retain him (anally).
In sum, psychoanalytically speaking, Emily uses a defense strategy,
denial. She denies time, the law, the distinction between reality and illusion Thus, this
is a story about change and resistance to change, perceiving change as robbery and
resisting such robbery by taking into oneself the outer being that seeks to force you to
change.

And, in this context, just as Miss Emily incorporates her father and the
tradition that lies with his figure, the town incorporates Miss Emily as an idol. And just
as Emily wishes to incorporate and retain her dead fathers and Homer Barons bodies,
the narrator (which represents the voice of the town) seems to incorporate her after her
death.
5. Conclusion
After having read these three interpretations of William Faulkners A
Rose for Emily, it seems to me that the most interesting and thorough interpretation is
the one presents in the third and last text (Fantasy and Defense in Faulkners A Rose
for Emily, by Norman N. Holland), since it not only recapitulates, reinforces and even
incorporates the previous ones (and even cites them at times), but it also expands them
and further investigates them from a different perspective a psychoanalytic
perspective.
Thus, Hollands analysis does not deny the importance and value of
the other two interpretations, but it uses them in order to be able to give a new, different
view upon them and upon the story, which in my view makes it a wider and more
thorough, scientific and complete piece of literary criticism.