Category: Coffeehouse #3

A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner  a story begins with Emily Grierson’s funeral. Which is attended by many of the people of the town who really know nothing about her, other than Emily’s family house is the last of a once, elegant, and upscale neighborhood. In present day, board members of the town tries to get Emily to pay the taxes (that her father had made agreement to the town)  that hasn’t been paid since the death of her father. It’s her emotion’s that has made her unable to communicate about the death of her father, still in shock and unable to give up her father’s body but also it has made the town ridicule her for being unmarried at the age thirty. Homer Barron enters the picture as a potentially romantic relationship for Emily – that the town begins to gossip about. Though the relationship grows – the town’s people begin to fear that she will try to kill herself after being seen to have bought arsenic. However, years have passed by and Emily grows old and Homer is not seen again; after unsealing an upstairs room many enter to see Homer Barron’s body completely decomposed and a long strand of Emily’s gray hair on the pillow.  A paradox defined as a seemingly absurd or self contradictory statement that when investigated or explained to prove to be well founded or true. The paradox is this story is when Emily buys poison; the town of Jefferson believed that she will use it to kill herself, “She will kill herself”; and we said it would be the best thing.” (Faulkner 5). Though the people of Jefferson believed she had died a long time ago, it was surprising to hear that had died of old age and sickness. Only to realize that she has died to her emotional instability. 

In the story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, the paradox can be that Emily is both weak and strong. After the death of her father, the townspeople start viewing her with pity. It is very evident that he was a controlling parent due to the fact that he rejected many potential suitors for Emily. The death of her father was very hard on her because she refused to acknowledge that he had passed away but eventually she was able to give up his body. One way that she is strong is because she found a way to get away with paying taxes in Jefferson and she reassured  the officials that she is not required to pay them. I think that the redemption was the death of Emily’s father because after his death she was able to do what she wanted without her dad being in the way of her decisions. 

In the story “Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville the paradox is that the lawyer sees Bartleby as a charity work, he pities him but soon he realizes that he is a useful worker.The redemption in this story is Bartleby’s death because although he passed it showed how strong he was towards what he thought was right and wrong.

The story “A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner is a very odd story with a plot twist to it at the end of the story. The main character Emily is a misunderstood individual who was always being controlled by her father. Emily died at the age of 74 and was supposed to marry a man named Homer but we come to find out at the end that she poisons him and leaves his dead body in a room. This is found out when the townspeople go into her house for the first time after she passes away. The paradox in the story was when Emily went to the pharmacy to buy Arsenic, everyone in the town knew that she had problems in her life and they thought that she was going to commit suicide using the poison on herself but however the audience sees that the poison was really used to kill the man she was supposed to marry (Homer). Earlier in the story it said “Homer was not the marrying type” which I think was why she poisoned him because she wanted to be with him forever but knew he was not going to marry her so she killed him so that they could be together forever in the afterlife. Emily had a lot of act of redemption in the story when killing her lover, Homer. She wanted to stay with Homer for the rest of her life but knew it wasn’t going to happen this way so she murdered him so they could be together literally for eternity because they are together now after death.

The story “Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville is less of an odd and chilling story however was more confusing to find out the meaning of the story. A lawyer hires Bartleby who is a “copyist” and is very good at one part of his work but as time goes on he refuses to do office work and we find out he actually lives in the office where he works. At the end he is arrested and put in prison, when he is prison he does not eat and stares at the wall which causes his death. The redemption in this story is the actions of Bartleby and how he acts. He is very strong in his morals and what he believes in and he can be seen as an action of redemption when he refuses to do anything against what he believes like at the end of the story he starves himself to stay strong to his morals and what he believes.

To answer the question as to if there is a paradox within the stories lets first take a look at what a paradox is. Paradox means, contrary to expectations, but contains some truth. The first thing that comes to mind in the Story a Rose for Emily in terms of what could possibly be a paradox is the part where Emily was buying poison. Emily did not want to state specifically what the poison was for, thus the store clerk as well as the reader was led to believe that Emily would use the poison to commit suicide. The clerk even left a letter on the arsenic poison stating that it was only to be used for rats, which implicates that he is aware that Emily had ulterior motives. Now while the poison was not used for her to commit suicide as previously speculated, it was however used to kill the man that she was hoping to marry, Homer.

Emily could also be viewed as the redeemer for Homer, or the person who bought Homer redemption. Homer can be viewed as an immoral person in that day and age since Homer liked men, and was “not the marrying kind”. If you considered Homer’s actions a sin then Homer was redeemed through death. In the story, Bartleby the Scrivener, the narrator himself was trying to act as the redeemer of Bartleby. Bartleby was non-compliant, selfish, and overall rather lazy and preferred to stay stationary which caused a lot of problems for his employer as well as those around him.

Bartleby was willfully being a thorn in the side of everyone and yet the one person who was truly trying to help him, redeem him, or should I say “save” him from himself was unfortunately unsuccessful in the end. There may be several paradoxes within this story, but the one that I believe is relevant is when the narrator tries several peaceful methods to remove Bartleby from the premises. The Narrator gave Bartleby several options to which Bartleby only replied that he would prefer not to do any of the options. One such option was to have Bareltby forcefully removed which did not sit right with the narrator so ultimately he decided to act against what he believed would have been the correct choice due to him pitying Bartleby. Bartleby was later removed by force anyway however it was done without the narrator’s knowledge since he would not have chosen such an option. Even while Bartleby was in confinement the narrator accepted to pay the bribe for Bartleby to eat well, just for Bartleby to refuse to eat and ultimately starve to death.

A Rose for Emily remarks on the tale of a woman idolized as the embodiment of the past. She is a living testament of times past, engraved into the lives and memory of all those living in Jefferson. Throughout the story, we learn of the idolization, yet also the disdain the townsfolk have of her. As her life passes her bye and things change, modernize, and advance, she often is out of control of the world around her. She has no say in getting a husband in her younger years so she’s left loveless well into her thirties. She Denies any advancement; even to have her metal house numbers attached to her home is too much. Not to mention her refusal to recognize her father’s death of the old mayor. Things are out of Emily’s control, yet what little control she does get, she’s ostracized for her choices. In a sense, Emily is a paradox within and of herself. Having been characterized as a “weak” woman controlled in her youth and her stature, she was also strong in her convictions, especially in the eventual murdering of her love, Homer.

The second story Bartleby, the Scrivener, I found a bit more difficult to read through as is the case with most of Herman Melville’s work. Bartleby, the Scrivener, tells the story of Bartelby, a copyist the Lawyer hires to work under him. Although internally except optional at his job for the first two days, Bartleby quickly regresses in the most mundane and passive manner he can: by simply and politely refusing to do his job. He does so in a manner that is so surprising and so difficult to combat that he’s initially able to do so with little resistance from the Lawyer. There is something to be said about passive resistance, as it can her the enemy of gene the most patient of people. Similarly, Passive aggressiveness is somewhat a paradox within its right. There is something so subtle in outright refusing someone in a manner that is so polite it can simply not be rebuked.

Similar to A Rose for Emily, there is little retribution for these characters. One could argue that Emily is her redemption in death. Having little control in her own life, Her last act of Power is taking the lives of both her and the own she loved. Comparable to Bartleby who also dies at the end of the story, however, I would theorize that his redemption comes at the hands of the Lawyer. The Lawyer finally feels as though Bartleby is humanized in his death, that he is not insane, but a depressed man fed up with the mundane and the corporatist rule of life. Also, in less of redemption and more of a release, the Lawyer is no longer consumed by the mystery that was Bartleby. Instead, he was able to label him, and end the passive-aggressive cycle that took a hold on him in the beginning.

In the story A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, I think that the main character, Emily Grierson is a paradox. The entire story produces strong mixed feelings between love/hate and respect/contempt. Another paradox, In a particular point, to look down on a pharmacist, Emily must look up at him. This reflected how vague her social position was. She had insisted on her superiority, more specifically due to her last name. It is interesting because since her father’s death, she was left poor and had much pity from the rest of the town people. A redemption within the story would also be Emily. Her was given the opportunity to redeem herself by being a wife to Homer Barron. Although he wasn’t seen very highly due to his social status or occupation, being a wife was seen as high status in society for Emily. 

In A Tale of Wall Street by Herman Melville, Bartleby is a paradox because his principles. These principles tend to tear him down, but at the same time his attempt to keep up with those principles is what can help in the end. This was a very self-contradictory way of acting. For example when he was willing to be lawyer yet refused to have personal contact since he strongly thought it was fake or seen as so.

As for an example of redemption within the story, A Tale of Wall Street, it would be the last act of Bartleby the Scrivener. This I think is because he starved to death in prison as a sacrifice. He this fasting to peacefully preserve his principles within his faith. It was a very religious act that really displayed the definition of the word redemption which is the act of being saved from sin, evil or error.

To start off.. paradox is a statement in which it seems that if one part of it is true, the other part of it cannot be true. Redemption is an act of redeeming something or of being redeemed by something. With all this talk about paradox and redemption, we see this in , “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. With Emily Grierson, she was a a complexed woman up until her death at the age of 74 due to her being ill. In the town of Jefferson, things had to go accordingly, especially with a new generation trying to keep things in tradition but to also try to do something different. The town’s previous mayor, Colonel Satoris, had suspended Emily’s taxes to the town after her father’s death, because of this Emily didn’t resume any tax payments in years and the new leaders of the town wanted her to do so. They tried everything in their power to get her to do so, they’ve sent letters on top of letters, visits to her house as well. She simply tells them that she is not required to pay taxes, according to Satoris. Though he’s been dead for a decade, the new leaders of the town have no idea what they’re going to do. The paradox in this story was 2 things, the awful smell and the disappearance of Homer Barron. The townspeople don’t know what the awful smell was, they came up with all types of conspiracies about what it was. Luckily, it was a 2 for 1 bonus, they found out by going into a sealed room upstairs of her dusty house to see materials like a wedding dress and a suit and tie and a nightshirt and on the bed, a decaying body, Barron’s, and on the pillow next to him, a long strain of gray hair, Emily’s. The redeemer is in this story is Emily and the redemption in this story, I believe, is from her father’s constant controlling and badgering. Even in death, her father is a pest. He sabotages any attempt for her to live her life and get married. But she made it happen, in the scariest way. By poisoning Homer with arsenic and being with him on the other side for eternity, the way she wanted to and was meant to.

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