Analysis of Emily’s Characters英语毕业论文.doc

Analysis of Emilys Characters.Introduction “A Rose for Emily” is a classic story representing Faulkners favorite subject, theme and style. The story is set in the town of Jefferson in his imaginary Yoknapatawpha County, the “mythical kingdom”. The story begins with a funeral of the eponymous Miss Emily. It does not follow a particular order of chronological time. The narration flows backwards or forwards in a line of reality, revealing significant details of Emilys life and the murder of the Homer Barron by Emily, which are suspended till the end of the story. The narrative is also divided into five parts, allowing for flexible shifts in time and displays of Emilys image at various stages of her life. Through the story about Emily, the author tries to pinpoint an unavoidable fate of the aristocracy and various changes in the South America after the Civil War.In this story, Emily Grierson, the main character, is a victim. Dominated by her father and his rigid ideas of social status, she has been prevented from marrying during her lifetime. One year after her fathers death, she falls in love with a northerner. When she finds that her lover is not going to get married with her, she poisons him so that she can keep him with her forever. Though the plot of the story is not complicated, yet it can be considered as a minor program of his works. In it are examples of Faulkners artistic preoccupations and techniques: the exploration of psychological reality, the social structure and mores of a southern community, the nature of time, and the relation of the past to the present. This paper will approach the story from the following aspects: analysis of Emilys character, the root causes of her characters and her destiny.Analysis of Emilys characters Emily is the main character, the protagonist of the story. In this story, the author mainly focuses and reveals the main characterEmily. In order to analyze Emilys character, some questions have at first to be answered: What type is this story or what kind of theme this story plans to reveal? When answering these questions, it becomes much easier to analyze her character. Miss Emily is kind of quiet and perverse, proud and aloof, haughty, brave and tough, a representative of traditional convention and so forth. The followings are going to expatiate on them. 2.1 Miss Emilys haughty character At the very first, Emily is easy to be regarded as a haughty woman. In the story, the writer not only reveals the abnormal phenomenon of Emilys grotesque character and her ill-sexed psychology, but also lively portrays her as a strong figure of haughtiness. Miss Emily Grierson is the socialite of her town. Naturally with this status there is a certain reputation she has to withhold. She not only represented her family name but, in a sense the people of her town. Because she was such a dominant figure the townspeople had put her on a pedestal and were very attentive to her actions. During the time in which her father was alive Emily was seen as a figure to be admired but never touched. Many wooers she had but according to her fathers standard, none were suitable enough. 2.2 Miss Emilys isolated and eccentric character Besides, Miss Emily is isolated and eccentric. From the whole story, there is no doubt that she was an isolated one from the beginning of the story to the surprising end. All her life is the town peoples topic after meals. They regard her as a monster. And because of her family, in particular, her father, she nearly get separated from her neighbors, which adds more pressure to her personal affairs to fall in love with the Yankee, Homer Barron, which, at last, creates the tragedy. On the other hand, she is eccentric at the same time. When the men from the government want to tax her after her fathers death, but they are refused by Emily. The reason is quite simple, that is, when her father is alive, in Jefferson, they need not to pay taxes. She just tells the government that she has no taxes in Jefferson. What she said was the matter several years ago. And there was once a man called Colonel Sartoris explained it to her about her tax-free privilege. She does not respect the truth, that is, her so-called Colonel died ten years ago and new policy comes into practice. The narrator arranges the specific detail on her behavior of buying Arsenic. The druggist can not imagine her purpose in buying the poison and just thinks that she might use it for rat and such things. Miss Emily just stares at him, her head tilts back in order to look him eye for eye, until he looks away and goes and gets the arsenic and wraps it up for her. How strange and eccentric she is. She does not allow anyone to ask about her matter, even though it is a dangerous affair which is forbidden by law.2.3 Miss Emilys necrophilia Miss Emily is a necrophilia, too. Greatly surprised at the sight of the last paragraph of Faulkners short-story “A Rose for Emily”, the town people find that Miss Emily is not only a murderer, but also sleeps with Homer Barron after she kills him. Then it is noticed that in the second pillow is the indentation of a head. One of the townspeople lifts something from it, and leans forward, finding the faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, and a long strand of iron-gray hair. Horribly, she kills her lover and sleeps next to him for a long time until being found out. As for the whole passage, the narrator refuses to dismiss Emily as simply mad or to treat her life as merely a grotesque, sensational horror story. Instead, his narrative method brought us into her life before we hastily rejected her, and doing so offered us a complex imaginative treatment of fierce determination and strength coupled with illusions and shocking eccentricities.42.4 Miss Emilys braveness and toughness She is brave and tough as well. As a woman, Emily is normal. She just tries her best to pursue her happiness. In this story, the most attractive part for a great number of people is Emilys brave pursuit of love. Only after her fathers death, she begins to have the right to love. “In the summer after her fathers death, she has her hair cut short and looks like a little girl. Soon she falls in love with Homer, who is a Yankee, a northerner and a day labor as well.” She holds her head high in her dignity as she is the last Grierson of her family though the townspeople think she has fallen because she is with a man who is different from her. However, Emilys love affair is not affected by the townspeople and her two female cousins interference. Whats more, .Intrinsic and extrinsic Reasons3.1 Intrinsic reasons3.1.1 FamilyIt is her family, especially her father that influences her so much. Emily, the heroine in the story, is a victim. Dominated by her father and his rigid ideas of social status, she has been prevented from marrying during his life time and therefore after his death, she is left alone and penniless. Her dependence on her father continues even after he dies; she refuses to bury him and keep his portrait in a prominent place in her living room. Emily not only clings to her fathers memory, she also begins to assume his domineering traits. She does not accept the passage of time and changes or the inevitable loss that accompanies it. It is not just pathetic attempts to cling to the past, it develops into obsession and finally, homicidal mania. Rather than lose Homer as she lost her father, she kills him in order to keep him. She lives many years as a recluse. Abnormal characters are easy to form when under such strong pressure. It is Emilys family that ruins her life and then Homers.3.1.2 PhysiologyEmilys typical characters are cause by another important reason, namely, the physiological one. From Freud Sigmunds narration, there are three conceptions which are connected to the analysis needed to understand, that is, Id, Ego, and Super-ego. They are the three parts of the fictive “psychic apparatus” defined in Freuds so-called structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model, the uncoordinated instinctual trends are the “id”; the organized realistic part of the psyche is the “ego”, and the critical and moralizing function the “super-ego”. The Id comprises the unorganized part of the personality structure that contains the basic drives. The Id is unconscious by definition.6 Id is humans first reaction when human physiological needs happen, which is also an unorganized phenomenon. Miss Emily just tries her best to chase her happiness as other normal women do. From this angle, Miss Emily has the right to fall in love with Homer and to have their own family. What she has done is within the common practice. However, a lot of elements result in the tragic sequel. It is she that can not grasp the physiological element and causes her unhappy or even miserable destiny.3.1.3 Pathology and psychologyThere is another important intrinsic reason, that is pathological and psychological one. From her behavior to her father Mr. Drieson, she is complete Elctra Comlex(恋父情结). She lived with her father when Mr. Grieson was alive, without communicating with others. Mr. Grieson controlled her whole life completely, which is the root that causes Miss Emilys tragedy and Homers. What is more, Emilys father drove away all the young men who were going to chase his daughter for the reason that he just wanted to hold Emily for himself. In Emilys sub-consciousness, her father is her lover. It is this kind of abnormal psychology that influences the formation of Emilys abnormal characters. In Emilys eyesight, losing her father amounts to losing her lover. And that means she will be alone from that time on. Therefore, she refuses to bury her father even though he has been dead for several days. And at last she kills her own lover just in order to keep him with her.3.2 Extrinsic reasons When referred to intrinsic reasons, it is easy to think of extrinsic reasons causing Miss Emilys characters and her destiny. What is more, the extrinsic reasons play a crucial role on her which worth of researching here.3.2.1 Cultural tradition Cultural tradition makes great impact on Emilys characters and the tragedy. Faulkner was aware of the Southerners association with the South tradition，not only physical，but spiritual as well; so he took pains to picture a group of Southerners who desperately submitted to the old way of lifeBut as an artist of the twentieth century, he observed the gradual changes of the South: the old veterans were dying of, and the old loyalties were adjusted to conform to new conditionsIn “A Rose for Emily”,Faulkner described the conflicts between the old tradition and the new order, and the doomed defeat of the old traditionEmily lived in her big and squarish frame house, which Grierson family thought the great choice. But her house was on its way to “coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps. And the once most select street which was filled with houses decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seveties” was then encroached and obliterated by garages and cotton gins. Faulkner admired somewhat the merits of the South traditionthe compassion and humanity men like Colonel Sartoris and his peersinherited forced them to tell a kind lie to Emily so as to look after the single lady without insulting her dignityBut only a man of Colonel Sartoris generation and thought could have invented it. The moral values of the South tradition were lostThe new generation of public officials may be more efficient and businessman-like. They were more practical; the next generation，with its more modern ideas，produced some little dissatisfaction with the hereditary obligation upon the town. but the old generation like Judge Stevens totally objected to the idea for it was shameful to let others know that such noble lady had smell on her faces. The conflicts between the old generation and the new one indicated the decline of the Southern traditionFaulkner believed that it was the moral valuescourage，honor，pride，compassion，liberty and justice that produced the glorious Southern kingdom，but the new generation lost the virtues，thus losing its faith and force The loss of the South tradition and the appearance of the North industrialization caused not only the devastation of the Southern plantation system, but also the macabre disillusionment to the Southern descendants. They were reared in the ways of the traditional South, vividly taught the beliefs and the loyalties of the tradition as the South knew themWhereas，they saw that world changing into another kind and they were themselves of that new changed world，yet apart from itFaulkner revealed with intensity the rootless of the Southern descendantsThey witnessed that the Northern industrialization penetrated the South, but their inherited Southern aristocracy forbade their acceptance of the new order of lifeThey stubbornly objected to the invasion of the northern way of life, but in vainSo the Southern descendants had to suffer from the loneliness and bitterness of separating from the new worldThe disillusionment of the Southerners was wel1 revealed in the portrayal of Emily, which is a symbol that Emilys characters formed and caused her tragic end. For Miss Emily, she holds a firm conception that the Southern tradition or her family system is some sort of superiority. Therefore, when another new systemthe Northern one comes into being, she just can not accept the truth and does some deeds to resist it and protect her “perfect one”. It is such behaviors and traditions that makes her abnormal characters.3.2.2 Social elementAnother extremely crucial factor for Emilys characters to form is the social element. Here it mainly refers to the environmentthe Jefferson community around her. For the townspeople, Grieson family never choose a northerner, a day labor. They think even though Emily is sad, she can not forget that she is a noble. They seem to be Emilys new father after her father died. They try to control Emily on her love affair. When Emily and Homer appear together, they talk about them with scornful expression. However, the communitys opposition does not influence Emilys persistent love with Homer. If the townspeople give up at this moment, the result of Emily may be much better. But, instead the opposition becomes further intensified. A priest gets in and fails. Then come Emilys two far-distance cousins. From the writers viewpoint in the story, Miss Emily has been much better when she fall love in Homer. But the social environment pushes her to the edge of an abnormal woman again and again.DestinyShe refused to release h