Reader Response Essay About a Rose for Emily

“A Rose for Emily”

(READER RESPONSE)

The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person. Said chuck Palanuick, however what if they are just one person? What if, you only love one person in your entire life and that same person is the only person who loves you also? Is that even possible? Well, William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” reassures us that, yes it is possible. “A Rose for Emily,” is a very interesting and unusual short story, I find this story very creepy and my reaction was just complete shock. The story is written backwards, meaning the reader reads the future to the past, which makes it more confusing. As a reader I have to be actively reading the story or I will miss something which I did the first time reading through it.  Being written the way it was, the story gives more frightening feeling that attracts the reader in.

'A Rose for Emily' opens at the time of protagonist Emily Grierson's death. The entire community attends Emily's funeral, but no one really knew Emily. I assume that the narrator is one of the townspeople. Emily seldom went out, and died alone at age 74. Her entire existence was a whole mystery for the townspeople. Emily’s father sheltered her a lot as a child. She wasn’t allowed to do much of anything. She was always expected to behave nobly since her family   was part of the aristocrat’s. By the time of her father’s death the town felt bad for Emily. Also, out of respect for Emily's deceased father, the town made an exemption for Emily in paying the town’s taxes. All her father had left was the house. The townspeople express their condolences about her father's death however, Emily was still in denial about the issue.

In time there was an odd odor that sprang from Emily's house. The townspeople concludes that Emily had kept her father's body in her home.  The people insists that “She was not crazy” They supposed she had to do that. Emily had started to actually change.  She rarely left her house, she cut her hair short, and was never to be seen again by the townspeople. After some time, Emily meets Homer Barron, when the town noticed Emily and Homer spending time together, the town is not convinced by the union of the two, because they thought that Homer is not good enough for Emily’s standards. When Emily decided to buy poison from the local pharmacy.  She allows the pharmacist to assume it's for killing rats. Everyone believed that Emily would kill herself with poison. Then, shortly after Emily bought poison at the pharmacy, the town never saw Homer again. After some time, Emily’s hair turned grey and became overweight, her door remained closed for six to seven years, until one day the townspeople stopped seeing Emily and later they learned that Emily was dead.

 Emily’s story is somehow unique from other people’s experiences. Emily grew up isolated. All her life she was locked in her own little world not knowing what the real world is like.  I think, if she was given the right guidance to explore life, she could have moved on from her sufferings, but she wasn’t prepared so she coped the only way she knew how. We can’t blame or Judge Emily of the way she thinks and acts, for me it’s her father’s mistakes for not letting her be a free person making her own decisions in life. This happens with a lot of people nowadays. We see it a lot with teens and young adults who indulged in premarital sex because they grew up in a home with many rules and beyond firm expectations, just like Emily’s father put on her. My life compared to Emily is a complete opposite, I was raised to be independent and to discover things on my own, Sometimes we need to try new things out of the box on our own, because that will make us a person. We are all allowed to make mistakes, errors and learn from it, so, don’t let life rule you instead rule your own life and live your life the way it should be lived.