In “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner

In A Rose for Emily, William Faulkner explores what encourages and what happens due to insanity. Emily Griersons life is narrated through, we can assume, a member of the community to which she belonged belonged is used because she is already deceased at the beginning of the short story. Faulkner avoids telling the story chronologically and instead tells us about Emilys past in a way similar to the way the hu reality mind worksa series of memories all jumbled up.Emily, we find out, lived a life under an overly controlling fathershe pr practiseically had no social life to speak of. Her father was basically the totally person in her life so it is not surprisingalthough shockingthat she clings to him even after he dies. Upon his death, she goes out in the town and defies the set rules of society by visual perception a man under her status. Fraternizing with this man, Homer Barron, may get to had a positive impact on her life however, Homer is not a marrying man (29), which turns out to be absolutely devastating for Emily. Emily, we can conclude from her fathers death, does not deal well with strife.The heartbreak is too much for her and causes her insanity to lash out. Emilys yearning for someone to love combined with her insanity leads her to commit deeds that a sane person would never do such as killing a man, leaving the decaying ashes in her house, lying next to the corpse, and perhaps even committing acts of necrophilia. Looking at Emilys story, it is quite fright to think of the extent of damage that madness can compel people to inflict. It is very seeming that Emily did not realize how horrific her actions were.Truth to tell William Faulkners A Rose for Emily is an incredibly fascinating story about a woman who practiced necrophilia. The story is about a woman who poisons her boyfriend and keeps his body in a bed in her upstairs room for decades. No one ever exits or enters her old house except for her negro manservant.And what is necrophilia, barel y and how do we prove by using the text of A Rose for Emily that indeed, Emily Grierson was a necrophiliac? Necrophilia for Mirriam-Webster would mean, obsession with an usually erotic interest in corpses or erotic interest in the stimulation by corpses. Medical dictionaries would define necrophilism to be , 1. A morbid fondness for being in the comportment of dead bodies, and 2. The impulse to have versed contact, or the act of such contact, with a dead body, usually of males with female corpses.Necrophilia can best be described as internal arousal stimulated by a dead body. The stimulation can be either in the form of fantasies or actual physical sexual contact with the corpse. Legends with necrophilic themes are common throughout history and the concept of sexual interference with the dead has been known and abhorred since the ancient Egyptians, as noted by HerodotusWhen the wife of a distinguished man dies, or any woman who happens to be beautiful or well known, her body is not given to the embalmers immediately, but only after the lapse of three or four days. This is a precautionary measure to prevent the embalmers from violating her corpse, a thing which is in reality said to have happened in the case of a woman who had just died.The symptoms of necrophilia are as follows necrophilia are the presence, over a uttermost of at least sixsome months, of recurrent and intense urges and sexually arousing fantasies involving corpses which are either acted upon or have been markedly distressing. And the manifestations are said to be characterized by the following data. There is a broad spectrum of necrophilic behaviors, ranging from fantasies only to murder for the sake of procuring a dead body. Faulkners Emily did commit murder in order to have a dead mans body to sleep beside with, I want arsenic, (28) Emily tells the druggist in Faulkners story. That she is about to commit murder is only implied, and the truth is seen towards the end of the narrative. Experts have sub categorise the paraphilia according to where it falls on that spectrum. Necrophilic fantasies of corpses, never acted upon, still fall within the scope of necrophilia and some authors have categorized this as a neurotic equivalent to necrophilia. Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and disceptation forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair. (31) In this quote, the readers can deduce that, at the very least, Emily had lain beside the dead body of Homer Barron.Pseudonecrophilia describes isolated incidents where the sexual contact with the corpse may happen without pre-existing fantasies or desire to have sexual contact with the body. Even in its truest form, necrophilia can be quite varied, ranging from simply being in the presence of a corpse to kissing, fondling or performing sexual intercourse or cunnilingus on the body. The presence of some other paraphilias or personality disorders, however, can manifest in more imaginative or sadistic elements such as mutilation of the corpse, drinking the blood or urine, or homicide (necrophilic homicide or necrosadism).The latter is the most disturbing end of the spectrum. Although assumed rare, galore(postnominal) have argued that necrophilia may be more prevalent than statistics imply, given that the act would be carried out in secret with a victim uneffective to complain and given the length of time which the paraphilia has been recognized. But if Emily had used arsenic to poison and murder Homer, then she could not have been capable of performing an act of necrophilic homicide, for, how many times can you poison an already deceased and poisoned man?Although the act of murder itself may generate the subsequent sexual frenzy, research has resolute an alarming rate of homicide in order to obtain a body for subsequent sexual violation. Rosman and Resnick int their study, Necrophilia An analysis of 122 cases involving necrophilic acts and fantasies found that 42% of their study archetype of necrophiles had murdered in order to obtain a body.Researchers have determined, however, that sadism itself is not usually an intrinsic characteristic of true necrophilia. (74) In all cases, on that point is doubtlessly sexual preference for a corpse rather than a living woman. And this is what makes William Faulkners Emily, unique. In the plot is a reversal of the symptoms manifest that is usual in the cases of necrophilia. Emily, is a woman, who preferred the company and sexual comfort of a dead man.When no other act of cruelty cutting into pieces etc., is practiced on the corpse, it is probable that the lifeless condition itself, forms the stimulus for the perverse individual. Homer Barron, as implied in the story, was maybe going to flee Emily, hence she resorted to murder by poison, When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we h ad said, She will marry him. Then we said, She will persuade him yet, because Homer himself had remarked- he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks Club- that he was not a marrying man. (29)Kraft-Ebing states in his, Psychopathia sexualis It is possible that the corpse a human form absolutely without will satisfies an abnormal desire, in that the object of desire is seen to be capable of absolute subjugation, without possibility of resistance (89).What happened after the incident of the poisoning can only be guessed at, but in this telling of the life of Emily Grierson there is proof, that Emily as able to persuade her Homer Barron, only that he was not someone hard to persuade, he was already dead, after all, The violence of breaking polish up the door seemed to fill this room with pervading dust.A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal upon the valance board curtains o f faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the mans toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured. Among them lay a tie, as if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust. (30)Most individuals have been reported to be heterosexual. This was not a sick and twisted scenario meant to be feasted on by literary critics who work with queer gender theory, Emily was not gay, Homer could have been, but, Upon a chair hung the suit, carefully folded beneath it the two unuttered shoes and the discarded socks. The man himself lay in bed. (30) yes, Homer was a man, he was Emilys man.As with the other paraphilias, necrophilia often occurs in conjunction with other paraphilias. Again, readers can only make intelligent inferences as to how, just exactly, did the things of Homer( made of silver ) get to become so tarnished, if by air corrosion alone? Could it be that at some point or the other, Emily infused them with fluids from her body, through acts that are too horrifying to speak of in this paper, but you get the picture.The individual should be assessed for associated psychopathology and treated accordingly. Treatment for necrophilia would be similar to that prescribed for most paraphilias cognitive therapy, use of sex-drive reducing medications, assistance with improving social and sexual relations, etc. Sadly, Emily could not have been treated, she had chosen to isolation after her crime, Now and then, we would see her at a window for a moment, as the men did that wickedness when they sprinkled lime , but for almost six months, she did not appear on the streets. (29) For that time on her front door remained closed, save for a period of six and seven years, when she was about forty, during which she gave lessons in china painting (29).In conclusions then, there really is enough evidence in the text tha t Emily Grierson of William Faulkner had managed to make herself the necrophilic lover of Mr. Homer Barron.And so , the world can only offer, a rose for Emily, for she can no longer answer for her gruesome acts, not that she ever could.WORKS CITEDCole, Isaac, ed. The Life and Works of Herodotus. stark naked Land Press London, 1990.Faulkner, William. A Rose for Emily. Literature An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama Interactive Edition. Eds. Kennedy, X.J and Gioia Dana. United States Pearson Longman. 2005. 29 36.Krafft-Ebing, R. von. Psychopathia sexualis.New York Stein & Day, 1986, (Original work published in 1886)Rosman, J. & Resnick, P. Necrophilia An analysis of 122 cases involving necrophilic acts and fantasies. Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law,1989.