Skip to main content

How does the attitude of the people in town towards Emily work in her favor when she decides to commit a crime in "A Rose for Emily"?

Emily is so secretive and reclusive that people do not even realize she has killed someone because no one is allowed in the house.


Emily considers herself superior to her townspeople.  Her attitude is to avoid them and expect them to avoid her.  She is also very stubborn and eccentric, as evidenced by her refusal to pay taxes.  She insists on living off of the legacy of her also eccentric father, long after he is...

Emily is so secretive and reclusive that people do not even realize she has killed someone because no one is allowed in the house.


Emily considers herself superior to her townspeople.  Her attitude is to avoid them and expect them to avoid her.  She is also very stubborn and eccentric, as evidenced by her refusal to pay taxes.  She insists on living off of the legacy of her also eccentric father, long after he is dead.  Emily is so odd that no one really questions anything she does.


When Emily’s beau Homer Barron disappears, no one thinks that she killed him and left his body in the house.  He is a “Yankee” and they just assume that he went back where he came from.  They know Emily is strange, but they never assume she is a murderer.  She seems so timid.  She has never been able to have a boyfriend, because when she was younger her father scared them all off.  They just assume that she will be a spinster.



So she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell. That was two years after her father’s death and a short time after her sweetheart—the one we believed would marry her—had deserted her. 



Emily kept her boyfriend in her bed, and apparently was unaffected by the smell of his body rotting away.  The townspeople do not confront Emily or inspect the house.  They had enough trouble earlier getting her father’s body, and they knew he was dead!  So they settle on a solution.



Now and then we would see her at a window for a moment, as the men did that night when they sprinkled the lime, but for almost six months she did not appear on the streets.



The problem is solved, right?  There is no more bad smell!  It is not until Emily dies that they find Homer’s corpse, and realize she has been sleeping next to it.  Emily got away with the crime because no one wanted to cross her.  She was too stubborn and strange.  Her secretive nature meant that no one wanted to ask too many questions.  They just sneaked in and sprinkled lime to cover the smell!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is the meaning of "juggling fiends" in Macbeth?

Macbeth is beginning to realize that the three witches have been deceiving him since he first encountered them. Like jugglers, they have kept changing their forecasts in order create confusion. This is particularly apparent when the Second Apparition they raise in Act IV,   Scene 1 tells him that no man of woman born can overcome him in hand-to-hand battle--and then Macbeth finds himself confronted by the one man he has been avoiding out of a... Macbeth is beginning to realize that the three witches have been deceiving him since he first encountered them. Like jugglers, they have kept changing their forecasts in order create confusion. This is particularly apparent when the Second Apparition they raise in Act IV,   Scene 1 tells him that no man of woman born can overcome him in hand-to-hand battle--and then Macbeth finds himself confronted by the one man he has been avoiding out of a sense of guilt, and that man tells him: Despair thy charm. And let the angel whom thou still hast serve...
Post a Comment
Read more

What are some external and internal conflicts that Montag has in Fahrenheit 451?

 Montag, the protagonist of Fahrenheit 451, faces both external and internal conflicts throughout the novel. Some examples of these conflicts are: External Conflicts: Conflict with the society: Montag lives in a society that prohibits books and critical thinking. He faces opposition from the government and the people who enforce this law. Montag struggles to come to terms with the fact that his society is based on censorship and control. Conflict with his wife: Montag's wife, Mildred, is completely absorbed in the shallow and meaningless entertainment provided by the government. Montag's growing dissatisfaction with his marriage adds to his external conflict. Conflict with the fire captain: Montag's superior, Captain Beatty, is the personification of the oppressive regime that Montag is fighting against. Montag's struggle against Beatty represents his external conflict with the government. Internal Conflicts: Conflict with his own beliefs: Montag, at the beginning of th...
Post a Comment
Read more

In A People's History of the United States, why does Howard Zinn feel that Wilson made a flimsy argument for entering World War I?

"War is the health of the state," the radical writer Randolph Bourne said, in the midst of the First World War. Indeed, as the nations of Europe went to war in 1914, the governments flourished, patriotism bloomed, class struggle was stilled, and young men died in frightful numbers on the battlefields-often for a hundred yards of land, a line of trenches. -- Chapter 14, Page 350, A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn outlines his arguments for why World War I was fought in the opening paragraph of Chapter 14 (referenced above). The nationalism that was created by the Great War benefited the elite political and financial leadership of the various countries involved. Socialism, which was gaining momentum in Europe, as was class struggle, took a backseat to mobilizing for war. Zinn believes that World War I was fought for the gain of the industrial capitalists of Europe in a competition for capital and resources. He states that humanity itself was punished by t...
Post a Comment
Read more