Emily: A Murder or Innocent?.
By Yan M.
William Faulkner, one of the greatest authors in the world, created a famous character in the story "A Rose for Emily". When we read the end of the story, on the one hand, we are surprise to learn that Miss William Faulkner killed her lover, Mr. Homer, on the other hand, we are so moved by the situation "Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand hair".(Fiction 151). Is Miss Emily a murder or innocent? Let us look at her life style, her love affair and her real world.
Emily refused to accept the present world, she lived in her past world, which was the main reason for her to kill Mr. Homer. In the beginning of the story, from the following description of her house "lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps--an eyesore among eyesores", we can see a juxtaposition of the past and present and it was an emblematic presentation of Emily herself (Fiction154). And later, we read that she declared that she had no taxes in Jefferson, basing her belief on a verbal agreement made with Colonel Sartoris, who had been dead for ten years. So "Miss Emily Grierson of "A Rose for Emily," Miss Minnie Cooper of "Dry September," and the title characters of "Elly" and "Miss Zilphia Gant" are all driven to perverse or violent rebellion against the prevailing community standard"(Harrington et al. 49), reflecting disagreeable belief, uncombined moral norms from the past into a new world. .
Emily's love was interfered and tortured by her present world, which illicit her killing Mr. Homer. When she fell into love with Mr. Homer, the people looked upon her, and her relatives came to persuade her to give it up.