Emily's Isolation in 'A Rose For Emily' By William Faulkner

William Faulkner is one of the most critically acclaimed short story authors whose work continues to be studied in the literary world today. Among the numerous stories that he has written, ‘A Rose for Emily’ is an exciting story with gothic characteristics that have been successful in leaving its readers puzzled. The story is based on Emily Grierson, who is a woman that was brought up in isolation by her father, and a result of that, she grew up isolating herself from the general population.

Emily Grierson is a rich woman who lives in the town of Jefferson on her own as told by the narrator of the story. In the five-part story, the reader is introduced to the isolated life that Emily has lived throughout her life. For instance, the reader is introduced to the fact that her father never allowed her to mingle with people from the town (Rodman, 4). She was an only child whom Mr. Grierson deemed to be his most prized possession that other people were not worthy of mingling or spending time around her (Faulkner, 9).

For an isolated girl, one can only imagine the difficulty that she might have undergone when it came to her making male friends. Emily had no male friends that she could boast of when growing up.

When it came to her finding a spouse whom she would get married to, her father sent away all the men that wanted to marry her. He deemed all of them unworthy as they did not match the standards that he had brought up his daughter.

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For someone to marry the daughter, he had to first be perfect before Mr. Grierson’s eyes. All the men that had shown up on his front door had been turned away (Faulkner, 15). As a result of her father’s behavior, Emily Grierson grew up in isolation. When the father died, she had no friends to spend time with or ones that could guide her on common courtesy. Growing up alone resulted in the town people choosing to stay away from her.

Emily Grierson’s isolation results in the town’s people wanting to take away some of her wealth through illegal taxing. These are people who believe that the isolated girl has no one to help her defend herself from their mischievous and greedy approaches. Fortunately, Emily manages to find a man who she loves and plans on marrying (Mellard, 38). The name of the man is Homer, and the two claim to love each other so much and plan to wed (Faulkner, 18). Preparations are made whereby the two plan to have the wedding in secret as no one witnessed the union between the two. Homer made his way into the Grierson house but was never seen leaving it.

Emily is dead, and the town people who access the house found the decaying remains of a man that can be argued to have been Homer. Various issues could have happened to Homer, leading to his death (Faulkner, 23). However, from how Emily had been brought, she would have sought help but chose not to. Being brought up in isolation had resulted in her keeping the death of her dethroned to herself. Isolation led Emily to lock the whole world out. She suffered in silence the whole of her adult life until her demise.

From all the information that has been discussed above, it is imperative to note that Emily Grierson went through a lot of suffering that was caused by isolation. She had no friends to grow up around or engage with like normal girls. She ended up dying a lonely woman with a dead man in her house, which people only got to find out about too late.