The larger portion of critical discussion has centered on the nature and cause of the aberration which leads Emily to kill homer and Keep his body in her bedroom, on this question also there little agreement is Emily a black Widow who devour her unsuspecting lover a desperate and slightly crazed spinster who kills to possess him perhaps she is forced into madness or a fantasy world, is she a victim, then of time the town, her father, or her own repressed sexuality. the first sentence introduce the antagonists, when Miss Emily died, the whole town went to her funeral the men through a sort of respectful affection for fallen monument , the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of the house
Emily clause is subordinate the town is the subject of the sentence such construction used by an artist who compared the short story to the lyric poem in its demands for exactness and economy ,should lead to suspect that the town may require as much of attention as Emily Emily is a spinster who has not been visited in ten years, this sentence also provides important clues to the town attitudes towards Emily, the town comes to her funeral, not in grief to mourn the passing of a beloved member of the community, but out of curiosity and respect for a defunct institution in addition to its clear that Emily is a victim for there is no evidence that she is regarded with deserved hate or disgust. On the contrary, she seems to have been a pillar of the community.
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Inside Miss Emily house was like house in the movie a really aesthetic type, house such as in Gothic Romances the house appears to be the victim of the town, basically the town went there with much curiosity to trying to figure out what was inside In addition Miss Emily removed the cemetery is parallel to the house stands in a neighborhood of obliterated august names as her grave is among the ranked and anonymous’ graves if civil war soldiers ‘ the parallel works in reserve also suggesting that the house is a kind of tomb. In each case Emily and her house are not the agents but the victims. Of what are they victims? The house seems clearly to be decaying, a victim of the time, yet it may not necessarily be a natural process that changes the most select street to a commercial area
As Emily house is invaded by people from the town so her neighborhood is invaded by commercial interest rather than preserved for the value it may once have had. It suggested the the men respectful affection is a hollow emotion, hollow as would be the suggestion that her house is an eyesore among eyesores The remainder of the first section presents a brief history of Emily taxes, beginning with their remission by colonel Sartoris the mayor he fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron, remitted her taxes, Emily as impoverished aristocracy, is somewhat like the former slaves she becomes a duty, obligation action is qualified by his motives, which appear to be based more on than on respectful affection
The mayor don’t treat Miss Emily as an individual human being in need, but as a class as a Lady Aristocrat, the newer generation recognizes no such category and decides she must pay her taxes the new aldermen dehumanize Emily into a Faceless Citizen from the she receives an impersonal tax notice, a formal letter, an offer from the mayor to meet at the place of her choosing, and finally a deputation. The generation are similar in that they both choose to deal with an idea of Emily rather than with Emily herself, they are different in that they have different ideas of her and therefore approach her and her taxes differently.
In the other hand we recognize that all the women were curious about figuring out what inside the house of Miss Emily , the atmosphere of the house remind the Gothic Romance, it is tomblike , dusty, dark, and damp, with a stairway that mouns into shadow, the room is dominated by crayon portrait of Emily land dead father on a tarnished gilt easel , when Emily appear the women begin to see that she resembles her house , a gold chain disappears into her belt just as the stair disappears into shadow, and her cane has tarnished gold head hear appearance is striking her skeleton was smell and spare ,perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her , she looked bloated like a body long submerged in motionless water , and of that pallid hue
This passage begins with a kind of apology for her heaviness that teases the imagination first she small and spare, then pleasingly plump, but by the end of the first sentence she is obese. Three words letter she has bloated and by the end of the passage she has been transformed from a little old lady into a bloated corpse as decayed as the house how we could describe or respond to such a description? Through the hints that we may be in Gothic Romance , we have come to expect a Gothic heroine, we may be surprised when we learn she is small and fat , if it in spite of our developing sympathy , the description temps us to see her as a Gothic villainess .
But how affect learning that Miss Emily she balloons into a drowned corpse looking like a corps, she may be sinister, yet on the other hand, she may deserve sympathy especially if her appearance is the result of the same kind of process that has made the house into an eyesore The narrator introduce so gently to her ghastly appearance seems to have shown some sympathy for her , reinforcing the sympathy that already feel for what appears to be the helpless victim of powerful and careless forces
The towns shows little sympathy for miss Emily two generation have viewed her as a stereotype rather than as a living person, Miss Emily seems both pathetic and sinister, the interior of her house is both sad and frightening one of the frightening things about her and her house is exemplified by the staircase and the gold chain both of which produce lines that frustrate the eye, causes without effect also the narrator mentioned that miss Emily was against an invasion of tax collector , yet she seems not to need support , in confrontation her standing framed in a doorway, dominating the room as her father portrait dominated before she entered , she is dignified and powerful as she vanquishes them .
Her triumph is undercut, however, by the narrator parenthetical remark that her authority, colonel Sartois, has been dead for ten years, that she act as if the mayor is still alive is another unexplained action like an effect without a cause it could be possible that Miss Emily didn’t realize that is dead? does she lives in a fantasy world where the people she likes never die, or is she perversely pretending ignorance , by defeating the deputation she upsets the expectation that she will be victimized and earns admiration for her strength at the same time she confront she confront with disturbing mysteries about her character and motives
A series of confrontations between Emily and Jefferson takes place in the following section when the aldermen attend to take care of the smell without confronting her, she catches and shames them, and the next confrontation concerns her refusal to admit her father death on the other side the town defeats her , bending her , Emily profoundly shocks the town , however and she broke down after a three day struggle followed by a long illness and kind of resurrection , in the other part she refuse to fail , to play the fallen woman when the town thinks she is fallen , she also succeeds in buying arsenic without satisfying the law requirement ,her victories continue into when vanquishes female relation strategy backfires the apparently she suffer complete defeat homer disappears and the town is morally triumphant the suspected affair is at an end and Emily has not married a Yankee day laborer,throught the rest of the part, Emily leads the isolated spinster life , doing the things spinsters may be expected to do teaching china painting, refusing a mailbox and house number , and finally dying alone in her decaying house.
The townspeople begin to really sorry for her after the smell goes away because they remember how her great aunt went completely crazy and how her father kept suitors away, on the other hands they are not pleased exactly, but vindicated when she is still single at thirty, they are glad when her father dies and leaves her a pauper, because at last they can pity her and believe her equal to themselves for now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more less. They are glad when Emily and Homer are seen together, but begin to say poor Emily when the old people gossip enough to convince them she is a fallen woman they are convinced it would be the best thing if she killed herself with the poison she buys, they are really glad when they think Emily and Homer are married, because they want to be rid of her female cousins but are sorry when there is no public party.
The say that she will marry homer then discover that he likes men and is not marrying man they say she will eventually persuade him but we never know if she does in general they wrong as it is almost certain that they are wrong about the cause of the smell and the fact of the marriage.
More over flowers were bought by relatives rather than cut by the townspeople that the ladies are curious and macabre and that the old veterans distorted her past in their memories even though the townspeople seem for once to do the decent thing by not opening the room until she’s buried , they have pried enough to know that the door will have to be forced the consistent narrative sympathy for Emily is not only in contrast to the towns attitude, but presumably also in contrast to the narrators own attitude at the time vents took place.