ENG3407 D618, Gothic Literature and Visual Culture FA2016

At first glance, you wouldn’t think Faulkner’s story “A Rose For Emily” is a Gothic story. But as you get into the details, you can see how it comes from Gothic roots. For example, the frightening scene of people finding out after Emily had died that she has been sleeping in the same room as the corpse of Homer; sleeping next to a decaying, decrepit carcass. Another Gothic example would be lust – when Emily wanted to be with a man from the north, it brings shock to her local community. As she could no longer sustain her lifestyle after her support system dies, the people start (or have been) to dislike her. It shows how people in the south wouldn’t care if things were normal but anything outside of that would bring ridicule. Another Gothic trope here is the loneliness Emily felt. She lost everyone who was important to her: Her father and her fiance. The aforementioned fact I used that she stayed in her room with a dead body shows how much love she had for Homer (perhaps obsession), and how much she yearned to have him. She could not let go. Perhaps she couldn’t accept the fact he was gone even though it was her who killed him. Like if you do something out of passion and don’t realize what you’ve done afterwards. Even though she has a fiance, Homer was Emily’s first real lover, and she didn’t know how to handle that, as people tend to be with their first loves. She just took it a step too far!

In my opinion, I wouldn’t mind being with a woman who would want me by these extreme levels.. makes me feel special, don’t you think?

The Lovecraft short story, “The Rats in the Wall” is a shining example of what I always held to be Gothic literature. Being a fan of his writing I am naturally biased in my belief however having taken this course I can say that even beyond my fondness this still holds up to the outline that defines Gothic literature. It contains and plays with a lot of Gothic themes as well as adding its own brand of horror and unsettling details. From the very start of it there is the De la Poer family lineage which is shrouded in mystery and superstition. Not much is know to the the narrator at first other than what he could gather from stories and local superstition. The mentality of something frightening villagers is commonly seen in the genre, perhaps most notably in Dracula. Furthermore there is the family house which in this case can be seen as the stand in for a classic castle and what is underneath it, hidden from all eyes is perhaps the most frightening.

This story was a different version of Gothic than I expected. With our transition to the American Gothic the ideas of racism and and segregation   would be a more profound Gothic trope. The ideas that this story presents is something that we have been previously exposed to. The idea of the man controlling the woman, in the story the narrator says that Ms. Emily’s life was controlled by her father,and even in his death she was still under his control and she didn’t want to let his body go. Some of the other Gothic ideas that this story brings up is homosexuality. The northerner that Ms Emily yet was said to be fond of young men and would spend his time at the bar trying to pick them up. This story even touched on the fact that a woman is capable of killing her husband or the man she was with. Before this in all of the books and stories we have read the woman was never someone who could kill, and even up to the end when the body was revealed no one believed that Ms. Emily has killed anybody, they all thought that she would kill herself and never to be seen again. In all this story was a run through of many of the Gothic ideas and with the evolution to the American Gothic it will be interesting to see how the different ideas develop over time

The story “A rose for Emily” leaves a much more bitter taste in ones mouth than all the previous short stories. The fact that after Emily’s death they find Homer’s corpse, and signs that she would sleep in the same room as it, shows the gorey and uncanny nature in the story. However, once you get past the odd and robust illustrations this story gives off, one can see important themes that relate to the time period this takes place in. Emily is from the south during the 1930s which was one of the worst times to be in the South. The Great Depression effected many people, but it’s especially impacted farmers during the time because not only were they becoming bankrupt, but the great droughts of the ’30s caused many farmers to go hungry resulting in much more death than previously encountered. Along with this came unionization of the north and south, which neither parts wanted because of the clashing ideals both sides faced. Emily’s “history” in the town is an example of all these problems that occurred on the south. First when she fancies a northern man, much to the shock and dismay of her fellow townsfolk. Then her going into debt once her financial supporter dies. The townsfolk ignoring her and yet getting upset over her suspicious behavior shows how southerners would mostly ignore the radical change the north tried to establish, and would simultaneously get upset over the ideas the north was trying to establish to the entire country. Emily is the epitome of the feelings many southerners faced during the time.

“A Rose For Emily” was a pretty interesting read. In the story I find the theme that makes this gothic is the fear of loneliness. I say this because as you can see Emily was royalty so she wanted to get married to pass down her bloodline, but she can’t find the perfect person for her. Everyone in the town thought that Barron would be her husband but the story tells us he’s gay. Now that I think about it Emily probably killed the baron with the poison so no one else could have him. Some proof that would support that she can’t let go of things easily is that when her father died the village wanted to bury his body but Emily resisted for a long time saying that he was still alive. While the story goes on you can see how Emily’s figure deteriorates. By this I mean her physical appearance she ends up having a full head of grey hair when she isn’t even that old. This was probably due to being stressed out knowing that if anyone found out that she had Barron’s dead body in her home she was probably going to be punished. I also found out that corruption really stands out in this story. For example when she was buying the poison the man did question her and she didn’t really give him a legit answer, but he still gave her the poison because she was royalty and even if it’s against the law to give poison without writing down the reason she can bypass that rule. I thought that the story was pretty good even though it confused me in the beginning.

The rose for Emily was definitely had a different feel compared to the other gothic stories that we have all read. As I was reading the story I was thinking what is gothic about it. Until I finished the story. The story showed isolation just like the other gothic stories. Emily would stay inside her house and would never come out. Only having her servant to do her errands. The towns women would always gossip about emily. Which is understandable for Emily to want to be isolated. Another gothic element is the queer. Since Homer Barron, apparently likes men. Which has been said from the towns women. In the story Emily Poisoned Homer and had slept with his body for many years until her day of death. Which shows mental illness and it also shows the horror of what people are capable of.

I actually liked this story, I thought it was very interesting. The Stories that we have been reading recently seems to be more realistic and deal with mental illnesses and horrors of reality rather than superstition. The story was pretty normal until Emily wanted to buy poison from the druggist. It only made it more unusual when she didn’t say what it was for. I assumed she wanted to harm herself because she did seem to have some kind of problems at that point in the story. The next chapter reassured my assumption because people said that “she will kill herself”but they also said right after that “It would be the best thing”. Both Emily and Homer Barron disappeared soon after. I thought that had something to do with the poison. As the author goes in tot he future he describes Emily as sort of an anti-social, perverse, mysterious old woman with vigorous iron gray hair. She also did not let people into her house that easily and she shut down the top floor which was strange. When she had finally died, no one even knew how she died because they gave up trying to get information on her a long time ago. The ending was really surprising. I knew there was something was going to be revealed at the end of the story but this took a pretty wild turn. The iron gray head on the pillow also means that she laid with him in bed recently even though he died years ago.

At first while reading this short story I was confused about the timeline. I was not too fond of this story because I felt it was hard to follow at certain points but I did enjoy the ending and felt it was a very gothic turn of events. The people of the town seemed to be very intrusive on this women’s life when they had no right to do so. She was a very typical gothic character with wants for isolation from society and peculiar tendencies that from the towns peoples perspective would seem odd. I was left with many questions at the end of the story because I had very hard time following what was going on in the text. The character Emily lost her father and could not deal with his death so she kept him in the house for days and then met another man and the town thought they got married. I assumed Homer Barron, the man she married was the skeleton that they found in the locked door and the smell that they mentioned earlier on was from the rotting flesh. I find with the short stories that it is harder to understand the story line the author crams in a lot of information in other a few pages. The story does not have the appropriate time to develop and the understanding of the timeline gets difficult to decipher. I also prefer the stories in a earlier setting that offers a darker setting. This story is spooky and uncanny but the more current setting does not give it the same gothic element from the other texts.