Pearl River Community College's award winning literary magazine

Special Edition—Spring-Summer 1998

Feature Section

Reviews

William Faulkner's Focus in "A Rose for Emily"
by Chrissy Martin

Absurd as her actions may seem, when Miss Emily believes in something, she sticks to it without compromise. This strong will is illustrated in her refusal to pay taxes. Out of sympathy after her father's death, Colonel Sartoris, the mayor at that time, invents a tale as to why Miss Emily will not be required to pay taxes. She believes him and for years lives without the burden of the toll. However, when younger generations take office, they ignore Colonel Sartoris's arrangement and attempt to force her to pay. Miss Emily refuses, having nothing to do with the modern idea. Despite the absence of her mailbox, every December they send her a tax notice which is returned by the post office a week later, unclaimed. It had been settled long before that she would not have to pay taxes and that is the way she expects it to remain.

Miss Emily is not one to discard an old idea that has become part of her way of life. Her defiance is even stronger toward letting go of a person who has been important to her. Miss Emily's father is a prime example. The day after his death, the ladies of the town come to offer their condolence, but Miss Emily meets them at the door, turning them away and insisting that the man is not dead. This behavior continues for three days despite the fact that doctors and ministers are desperately trying to persuade her to allow them to dispose of the body. She finally breaks down and they bury him just before they are about to employ law and force. In front of the fireplace, "a crayon portrait of Miss Emily's father" stands "on a tarnished gilt easel"; it is never moved. In reference to Miss Emily, Faulkner notes, "we remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that, with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will."

The death of her father is not the only way in which Miss Emily is "robbed." She is never given what every girl has dreamed of having--a beautiful wedding and marriage. The people of Miss Emily's community know that there is one room above the stairs in her house that no one has seen in forty years. After burying the aged woman, they break down the door of this room to find it "decked and furnished as for a bridal," but covered in dust. The objects are faded and have lost their luster. Lying on the bed is what is left of the man who would have abandoned Miss Emily and her wedding plans--the man she had murdered. On the second pillow is the indentation of a head and a long strand of iron-gray hair that had once belonged to Miss Emily. After all those long years, she still had not let this man or her unrealistic hopes go.

Miss Emily Grierson lives a sad and lonely life. Her misery is a direct result of her refusal to accept her losses and to give up the things of her past--her home, her tax remittance, her father, and her marriage plans. In the case of Miss Emily and in numerous other cases, dwelling in the past and rejecting the existing circumstances have prevented many people from enjoying or even living in the present. Man's tendency to hold to the past is exceptionally summarized by Faulkner in "A Rose for Emily." The words he uses to describe the old men at Miss Emily's funeral can be adequately applied to others who have also confused "time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches." Rather than being healthily divided from it "by the narrow bottleneck of the most recent decade of years," they remain in it, never fully living in the present.

Hidden Nuances
by Adrianne Breakfield

From the very beginning of the story, there is a sign that something is wrong. The appearance of the house, family, and social standing is just like a fantasy, perfect. The reader is given the truth of the matter when the house whispers to the children, "There must be more money." This aspect of the story also lets the hidden fairy tale shine through, for where else would a house whisper like an all-knowing oracle than in a fantasy land?

When the boy is told of the ever elusive "luck," he sets out on his valiant steed in search of it. He must find luck in order to win the favor of his true love, his mother. He is told luck is an unattainable goal, and that one must be "born lucky." He pays no heed to these words because all he can see is the prize he will win at the end of his journey. What he ignores is the long road ahead that leads into an unknown, dangerous dreamland.

As the story progresses, another type of story emerges. It is not evident at first, but the tide turns from fairy tale to a horror story. The turning point occurs when the boy, so happy with his accomplishment of luck, watches his mother open the birthday letter. He expects her to rejoice because she received a thousand pounds for her birthday. The opposite happens, and her face, like her heart, remains stony as she reads the letter.

The story swirls down from a bright hopeful beginning into a dark void of unending struggle. Even the object of the boy's affection, the rocking horse, becomes tainted. The horse became a nightmare because it only wrought him with more struggle and hardships. The horse took him where he wanted to go, but his dreams of love turned to dust because of the product of his journey. Not only is the struggle never ending, but it also holds great tragedy. The tragedy lies in the fact that the boy reached his goal but is denied the prize of love. The story is unfair; no good triumphs over evil. No knight rides away with a lady into the sunset. No matter how hard the boy tries, no matter how much money he wins, the need for money grows greater. The whispers in the house turn into screams, and the boy is lost in a sea of hopelessness.

The end is truly a tragedy. The boy dies trying to meet the ceaseless demands of his mother, and only then does she realize the magnitude of what she has done. Because of Paul's mother and her inability to give love, she has killed her son. Nothing can be done to change the fact that he is dead. The boy is finally released from the misery he had to endure on earth. The uncle's words are the only bit of comfort for the reader at the end: "My God Hester, you're eighty-odd thousand to the good, and a poor devil of a son to the bad. But poor devil, he's best gone out of a life where he rides a horse to find a winner."