The Conflict between the Individual and the Society in A Rose for Emily

One of Faulkners most famous short trading floor, A Rose for Emily is based on the theme of the stark conflict mingled with the individual and the impersonal voice of the community. To emphasize this idea, the story is rendered through the embodied signalise of view of the community that includes Miss Emily.Not accident altogethery, the plot of the story is impersonate in a small t consume, where the relationship between the individual and the ball club is a very tight one. More all over, the narrator of the story locates himself or herself among the raft in the t receive and sluice speaks in the first person plural, principal(prenominal)taining consequently a collective view of the events.The heroine of the story appears therefore even more(prenominal) singular and isolated, when regarded through the inquisitive lens of the community. The complex relationship between the individual, Emily Grierson, and the friendship, is emphasized in several ways.This conflict arises bec ause Emily, an aristocratic fair sex of a high tender standing, rejects all the cordial norms and conventions and enshrouds herself in her own fantasies and obsessions quite of actively cleaveicipating in the genial biography.The psychotic mind of the main character is therefore opposed to the gossiping community, which is limited to the role of a witness in this story. The reason for Emilys power is precisely her hallucination which also gives her an absolute and lawless freedom of action.What is striking is that Faulkner draws the portrait of a disturbed and obsessive individual, by setting it at a outdistance from the readers immediate perception.If, in most of his novels, Faulkner employs multiple calculate of views and the technique of the streams of mind to narrate the events, in A Rose for Emily the supporter is analyzed from the point of view of an entire community.The perspective that the towns bulk stick out on Emilys story is, however, equally unreliable. Mi ss Emily is described from the point of view of the community as a very haughty person, respected by everyone on account of her nobility but largely misunderstood.The gossiping, spiritual voice of the town is left outside the premises of the house where the woman isolates herself. Her refusal to pay levyes as well as all her other whims and peculiarities are accepted by everyone without argument, merely because she is part of the upper, aristocratic social class.When she dies however, the said(prenominal) community is shocked when they realize Miss Emily had entertained a froward obsession during her secluded life, and had slept with the dead body of her former lover, whom she had poisoned herself.Thus, the struggle between the womans desires and the opposing forces is now apparent she stubbornly holds on to the memory of her father and to the body of her dead lover, unwilling to relinquish her feelings for them. Emilys obsession first with her fathers corpse and with that of the lover is at the core of a morbid marriage fantasy that is the motif of the story.Therefore, Emily violates all the basic principles of her community, beginning with the laws of social interractionshe isolates herself and rejects all human contact- and continuing with tax evasion and even with the concealment of the corpse of her lover, Homer Barron in her own room.She is therefore a murderer or in any typeface an obsessive or mad individual who nevertheless manages to evade social punishment. Through her, Faulkner draws a vivid portrait of madness and the way in which an individual manages to literary live out the most psychotic fancies in the middle of a normal small-town community. By definition, madness is characterized as a serious deviation from the accepted human behavior.Without being openly anomalous or incontrollable, Emily Grierson has a definitely obsessive mind which leads her to react against the laws of society. Her resolute self-incarceration in her own house a nd her obvious withdrawal from the normal life of the community points to the conflict between the individual and society.Emily revolts against social norms and chooses to live in her morbid dream instead. She prepares for a ritualistic marriage that she feels she cannot fulfill otherwise than through death.Her seclusion from society is also significant, as she withdraws in the preventative of her own fantasy and rejects the assumption of a pre-established social role. The morbid gesticulate of violence that Emily performs is a poignant rejection of social conventions related to gender and marriage.However, her rejection of social existence does not point merely to the ongoing tension between individuality and community Faulkner represents here the gap between the individual consciousness and the collective voice.Although the impersonal narrator would seem to forbid psychological interrogation in the story, the voice of the community itself creates psychological tension. Despite her willful isolation, Emilys madness can therefore only be understood as a reaction to social constraint.The author emphasizes the obsessions that consume Emily as part of her response to social pressure. While the woman lives her obsession is silence and solitude, the society watches all her movements keenly and with undiminished interest.The most curious phenomenon in the textbook is actually her existence as an individual among the other ordinary people of the community, and the way in which she manages to evade the control of society over her own life.The community described here by Faulkner has a gossipy and even haunting voice that hovers over the household where Emily lives in complete isolation.As the story is told from the point of view of this inquisitive and restless community, the reader gets a glimpse of the way in which Emily Grierson moves quietly on, from one generation to another, closely watched by the members of her social environment.What is curious is that, w ith all its regulating force, the community fails to control Emily and her madness Thus she passed from generation to generationdear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse (Faulkner 1970, p. 179).Faulkner emphasizes this fact by referring to Emilys oddly strong and pervasive influence as a victory of the social power.In this story, the individual seems to triumph over society and madness triumphs over norm. Interestingly, the murder of the lover is in itself an anti-social act as well as a token of Emilys obsessive nature. However, the fact that Emily manages to escape social control to a certain extent does not make her a free person.Her marriage fantasy is the token that her behavior is determined, at least(prenominal) partially, by her response to social influence.