In William Faulkner's short story "A Rose For Emily," the title character yearns for attention and affection. Emily remains bitter towards her father, Homer Barron, and any other male authority figure. In short, Miss Emily Grierson is a disturbed relic of a by-gone era. Combing these factors makes Miss Emily a reclusive and crazy woman.
Being abandoned by her father and her first love has made Miss Emily a lonely woman. She never went out because se liked to keep to herself and the townspeople hardly saw her. Of course "the townspeople had pity for her;" the house was the only thing her father had left her (p.77). She had no one to love or care for her, and she was the end of the family line with no children and too old and decrepit to have any.
Being lonely and feeling lonely may have caused Emily to become bitter. Living in the large house with no one other than her Negro servant may have turned Miss Emily into a bitter old maid. After "her father died and her one true love deserted her," she seemed to become bitter and angry towards all men (p.76). I believe that her bitterness comes from the "loss of her one true love" (p.76). These feelings may have kept her from trusting any man ever again. She thought that Homer might have been different. When she found out that he was leaving, she realized that he was just like all the others.
Emily's bitterness made her a very disturbed and mentally troubled woman. Her feelings of rage towards her father for driving all of her boyfriends away made her want revenge on all men who set out to hurt her. When she started dating Homer Barron, the day-laboring Yankee, she was trying to get back at her father and his traditional southern ways. When she learned that "Homer did not love her," she started to go insane (p.79). She must have wanted to do anything to make sure to keep him in her life for as long as she lived. She did not want to be abandoned by another man.
