In section one, the narrator is at Emily Grieson’s funeral. He tells us the Grierson family’s presence and role in the town, saying that Emily’s father loaned money to the town and was exempted from paying taxes by Colonel Sartoris. After her fathers death, the town tried readmitting the tax on Emily, but Emily refused to pay, saying they should see Colonel Sartoris, not knowing he has died almost a decade ago. I started questioning Emily’s sanity at this point, solely because of the state of her home after her death, smelly and seemingly unkempt even though she had a helper, and her not knowing the death of the man who allowed her family to go without paying taxes for so long for nearly ten years.
The narrator tells us how Emily never went outside of her home after the death of her father. The Grierson’s held themselves higher than everyone else and the town notice that, so when Emily lost her father, people thought Emily were finally at their “level”.
“Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized”.
The women at the funeral noticed how smelly the house was but brushed it off, saying it was typical of a man to not know how to clean properly. The narrator recalled that members of the community went to Emily’s house after dark and sprayed lime juice in her cellar, because of the stench. Even though she had a crazy aunt, the community didn’t call Emily crazy at the time. Emily’s father was overbearing on her and never allowed her to interact with men. Being Emily’s only interactions with a man, the town understood why she wasn’t acting ordinary.
Emily is seen buying poison for no specific reason. I assumed when the drug store assistant gives her the poison without any explanations, even though by law you need to say what you’ll be using it for, he might of thought she wanted to commit suicide and felt sorry for her, just like the majority of the community.
A reoccurring phrase that has been used ever since her father’s death is “Poor Emily”. It was said in the beginning of section 4 when everyone thought Emily would end her own life, even though she was seen with Homer Barron. When word got around that she was buying certain items, such as a men’s suit and nightgown, they assumed Emily reconsidered and settled down with Homer. They didn’t see much of Emily or Homer afterwards, but no flags were risen because this was the first man besides her father Emily has ever been with to this degree and assumed they wanted to be left alone together.
Everyone discovers the dead body of Homer on Emily’s bed and a lock of Emily’s hair, implying that she has been sleeping with Homers body after he passed. I assume she killed him with the rat poison she purchased early in the story. The author kind of foreshadowed this by stating earlier that Emily refused to accept the death of her father and had him in her house for three days before she was forced to bury him.
This particular author and story talks about a woman who was isolated from an entire town and what one of the outcomes that can be caused by this. In what I mean by isolated; is that her father chased away all probable suitors, possibly because or their economic status or beliefs. I am sure that depression had set in once her possible husband had left her. So now we have a woman that has no father, no husband, and economically no future. I would be depressed also, and already used to sitting by herself in a empty house (except for her helper), it would seem like the right to do. Especially since you do not feel worthy and abandoned. But then I see a small glimmer of hope for her as Homer Barron enters the town. But it turned out he was nothing but a womanizer who selfishly wanted no commitment. The author points this out when he talks about him hanging out with the guys and having fun. Obviously she becomes aware of this, which deals the final blow to her insanity. So she dresses him up and poisons him, and insanely sleeps with him. The smell that the author describes can only be the smell of a decaying human body, because if it was a small animal or rodent the range of which the bad smell can exists is very shortened, compared to a full grown human body. This also explains why the smell lasted as long as it did. I would like to point out in her denial phase of her father’s death that many women reached out to her, but she severed that connection with reality only to live in a world created by her own mind. A mind that was already decaying itself. So I can see where the author used that theme of decaying not only in death and insanity, but also in how the house was described inside and out, and how the helper himself was portrayed in the end. I would like to finish with this thought; there was a lot of comparison of the different thoughts of how society views the prestigious. The jealousy, and envy that were portrayed, and the sarcasm of maybe she will understand the value of a coin now that her father only left her a house and no money. I would also like to annotate that thought was very similar to being left in a cell with no future and no hope. Just existing. Which is still common in the world today.