Necrophilia is commonly defined as a sexual attraction towards deceased individuals, but it can also refer to a desire for complete control over another person in the context of an intimate relationship. This level of control can often be so overwhelming that the individual involved turns to unresponsive entities that lack resistance and willpower—such as dead bodies—as a substitute. In William Faulkner's 'A Rose For Emily', the character Emily is portrayed as being isolated and detached from reality, ultimately succumbing to this affliction of Necrophilia that Faulkner subtly hints at throughout the story.
The character of Emily Grierson can be described as an isolated and repressive individual who impedes the town's ability to discover her authentic self by avoiding interaction with reality. Emily retains a mindset that is frozen in the past, while displaying fragments of contemporary
...attitudes. This is evident in her hesitation to comply with regulations such as paying taxes or explaining the purchase of poison, due to her self-imposed sense of law and order. Similarly, she ignores federal guidelines by declining to have house numbers attached for mail delivery.
Emily attributed her ability to disregard tax payments to a concocted story by Colonel Sartoris, who claimed that only men from his era could verify her exemption. Despite the changing times and younger generations, Emily remained firm in her belief that she was exempt. She remained oblivious to the fact that Colonel Sartoris had passed away many years ago.
Following the death of her father, Mr. Grierson, Emily exhibited isolation and detachment from reality. She was observed exhibiting necrophilic tendencies, which were believed to be influenced by her strong attachment to her late father.
Emily's
father was a self-centered individual who held her back and didn't want her to move out because he desired someone to maintain the house. As a result of her attraction to corpses and suppressed memories of him, Emily aimed to establish dominance over him by refusing to relinquish his deceased body. Subsequently, she experienced similar feelings of losing control over a cherished person when her fiance Homer neglected to properly court and wed Emily and admitted that he wasn't interested in marriage. This made her feel distant from Homer and concerned that he was slipping away from her since she loved him deeply and wanted him close.
In "A Rose For Emily" by William Faulkner, Emily exhibits signs of isolation and disconnectedness from reality, all while harboring a disturbing obsession with the dead. She gains complete control over her father and eventually transfers that control onto Homer, whom she takes the life of to maintain her power. After this, Emily further retreats into seclusion, as she has no need to leave her home with everything she needs at her disposal. When Emily passes away, the townspeople discover the decayed body of Homer Baron, dressed in a tuxedo and lying in bed next to an indentation on the pillow where Emily's hair had been left behind. With these findings, the townspeople begin to piece together the truth of why they never saw Emily, what the poison was for and what had happened to Homer's disappearance.
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