Briana Estrada 11/10/16
In this short story, the story starts with the funeral for Emily Gierson whose life we learn about. Emily was once a regular woman but her personal life has been corrupted because of the pain of her father’s death which made her mental state of health tarnish. Her love Homer essentially became some sort of hope of happiness, but after the poisoning of him and stealing his corpse, Emily became in a way a dark gothic villain. It is interesting how we are now seeing women characters who can become as dangerous or even more than the male gothic characters in these texts, because they carry the worst aspects of the social issues and oppression that happened during these times.
“A rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is a short story of the many downfalls of a suppressed and isolated woman who once seemed normal but can’t seem to cope with the negative events in her life like her father’s death, and the gay revelation of her lover. I think that this story is another quite unique kind of gothic works because just like the yellow wallpaper we are focusing on a female protagonist now and main character which is dealing with the pain of life.
I feel Emily was always a Gothic villain even before she killed Homer. I feel this way because just the lust she had when he was alive. The deep seeded desire. That is a trait of a Gothic villain. Emily just got the bad luck of everything in her life, which is unfortunate. I, too, like how the stories we read now have women playing a more important role. I feel like the switch to American Gothic literature made these changes from the European storytellers like Shelley, Stevenson and the like.