A Rose for Emily

 

"A Rose for Emily" is a gothic short story that deals with loneliness and death. The short story starts with Emily an old lady well known in the neighborhood and all her neighbours being curious about her house in the guise of meeting her. This detachment from the neighbours lead to alienation for someone who lived in the same town for her whole life.

The flashback of her life as a young lady provides us much more details about our protagonist. Her major years of life was dominated by her father who even refused potential marriage alliances. She was confined within her premise not knowing anything about the exterior world. Her extreme dependency on the father caused to break down at the death of her father when she was thirty years old. She even refused to cremate her father by making herself believe that her was still alive but at the end she had to accept his death. As soon at the pillar is broken the walls also starts to fall.

As days go by she has her eyes set on a young man named Homer Barron who did not reciprocate her feelings. She starts to create a world of fantasy with Homer. One fine day the neighbours see Homer entering the house but never exiting giving them an illusion of their potential marriage. After her death neighbours find his rotten body in one of the bedroom with signs of her sharing the same bed with the body.

The story portrays a bridge between an aristocratic world and a common man's world. She was once a rich lady who lost their fortune over the years. When the family was rich they were envied but when the fortune was lost isolation began.

Emily was very pitiful and she was also mentally disturbed. Her life was smooth as ignorant as she was but her father's death was a huge blow for her as she had to suddenly step towards the world of the adults. Her loneliness led her to create an imaginary world with Homer and it's not difficult to understand that she might have killed him so they can be together.

The title itself is very ironic as we do not find a single rose mentioned in the entire story. It may symbolise her young beauty has hidden thorns beneath the superficiality.