Emily, not only an important aristocrat Southern figure for the society, but also a mysterious and dark woman who hides herself from people around her. Her house, a shelter for this isolated person that help her to hide her horrible truth.
When I read "A rose for Emily", there was an interesting fact that called my attention about her personality. She always refused to any kind of change, and at first I could noticed about it when she didn't allow anybody to move the dead body of her father from the place where he died. But it is also connected with the fact that the whole society was in a modernization process, while she stay at home. Home which she kept intact and where she got older with the same Southern aristocrat personality that the whole society had on a pedestal but, as the time passed, her image of superiority was disappearing due to her strange behaviors.
What I also found interesting was the fact that, her personality was very related to her Necrophiliac condition. As it means having a sexual attraction to dead bodies, it also explains why Necrophiliacs are usually controlling in their relationships. Emily had the strong desire to control other people; she first controlled his father when she refused to give up to his body and, finally, she controlled Homer when she killed him for him to stay with her all her life. CREEPY!
I found very interesting who you managed to relate necrophilia with Emily’s behaviour, I hadn't thought about it. However following that same idea I do not think she suffered necrophilia in the right sense of the word. Necrophilia, as you wrote, implies that she had “sexual” desires towards the corpse of Homer and I do not think that that was the case of Emily.
ResponderEliminarThe way I see it, maybe I am wrong, she used the corpse of Homer as a source of companionship and security but without a sexual connotation. She used Homer’s corpse to fill the emptiness that her father’s death left because, even though their relationship seemed awkward and tense at times, he was the only person that she had to rely on so when he died she was only left with a big house and a last name. Nevertheless, I agree with you one hundred percent that she had a mental illness and that it was totally creepy.
Another point that you mention was that “She always refused to any kind of change”. I would like to expand that statement a little bit more by saying that in my opinion, not only did she refuse to change but also she could not change. We have to bear in mind that at the time in which the short story was set the value of women was strongly related to their marital status and the amount of children they were able to procreate and Emily had none of the previous. The only validation that she had for her existence was her prestigious name and her position, therefore changes were out of the equation.