In American society, it has become a second nature for people to put others on a pedestal, thus allowing a harsher criticism of their actions. This practice provides members of society with less time to evaluate their own faults. The townspeople in William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily separated Emily Grierson from
themselves on the basis of family status. Throughout the story they continuously place her actions as being on a higher level than those of other people in the town in order to put her actions under a harsher scrutinization than their own.
When Homer Barron comes to their town, the townspeople watch in earnest to see how the relationship between he and Emily develops. As it progresses, the people begin to add the town constructed model of how Emily should behave to their evaluation of the affair between her and Homer. Though it would perhaps have been considered acceptable for another woman of the town to fall in love with such a man, they consoled themselves that "...a Grierson would not think seriously of a Nor
place the blame for the wrongs in their society. For, not a long period of time had elapses before "...some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people."
therner, a day laborer."(Pg. 74) They set her up as the model of their small society so that when she fails they have a soul upon which to
Through the obsession which this town holds for Emily, stems a jealousy of her superiority, the idea of which has been created by the townspeople themselves. In today's society, we hold celebrities as superior to ourselves, and fool ourselves into believing that they are some sort of superbeings. As time elapses, a jealousy of these people begins to fester, and eventually our society begins to wait for a chance to prove that these people are only human. We claw at the chance to bring these people down to our level, when we put them above ourselves in the first place. At the time of the death of Emily's father, the people of the town found their chance to bring Emily down to
All papers and essays are for research and reference purposes only!
Copyright 2002-2009
Direct Essays , LLC. All Rights Reserved. DMCA Webmasters make $$$$