“Farewell to My Duty” is a rewrite of William Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily” in different point of view. The protagonist of the stories is Miss Emily. While the original story is narrated by the town people as in first person plural, the new version’s point of view is only one person, Tobe. In the original story, because the narrator is the town people, the story is developed by the facts that they observe outside of the house, and the thoughts how they feel about Miss Emily. However in the rewrite, the narrator is Tobe who lives together with Emily, probably for a long time, and who is able to observe her even inside of the house. The new narrator here, Tobe, is probably the one who knows about Miss Emily the most, therefore the way how he describes about Miss Emily would be different from the town people’s point of view.

The point of view of the new version is Miss Emily’s closest person. In the original story, the town people talk about Miss Emily as a neighbor in their town, but Tobe is Miss Emily’s closest person; Tobe supposed to know more about Miss Emily. Therefore the original story shows the relationship between other people in the town, but the new version describes the relationship with her closest person Tobe as well as with the town people.

For the town people’s point of view, “Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town” because Miss Emily didn’t pay tax after her father passed away (section 1, paragraph 3). Even though most of the neighbor didn’t like her, they eager to know about Miss Emily just out of curiosity; some felt pity for her; some expected downfall of the Grierson. In the original story, the relationship between Miss Emily and the town people is well-described. The town people care about what was happening to Miss Emily not because they really concerned about her health and comfort, but because they were just curious about her. People in the town considered her as some unsolved topic which they can gossip in gathering over years. Throughout the story, the neighbors knew all the details about Emily. For example, in section 3 paragraph 1, the narrator described the appearance of Miss Emily and Homer Barron with details. “Presently we began to see him and Miss Emily on Sunday afternoons driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy and the matched team of bays from the livery stable.” Also the town people knew that she bought arsenic and that she ordered a man’s toilet set and clothing. As we can see in the original story, the whole town have interests in her but just out of curiosity. Even though she didn’t interact with the people at all, they knew about Miss Emily quite well.

In the story, the town assumed that Tobe would know everything about Miss Emily and tried to get some information about her from him. However they gave up asking him about her later. The narrator in the original story says “He[Tobe] talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if from disuse” (section 4 second to the last paragraph). The only clue of their thoughts about the relationship between Miss Emily and Tobe was his voice; it was rusty from not using it and people can conclude that he doesn’t even talk to Emily. In the new version of the story, however, there are more details which describe the relationship between them. When Tobe found out that Miss Emily bought arsenic, he questioned to himself “Is she going to kill herself?” (paragraph 2) But soon he assumed that she would not kill herself because of a Northern laborer guy. Later even when she ordered a man’s toilet set and outfit, Tobe was wondering about the reason why she bought them, but he never asked her. He did not have any conversation with her not because he did not care about her, but because he trusted her. Also he knew he was “not in the position” to ask or tell her what to do (paragraph 2). Miss Emily was Tobe’s duty to take care of, but at the same time he also felt loyalty and compassion to her. He was the only one who really had respect for her and cared about Miss Emily. He says in the second paragraph; “luckily, regardless of my concern, she didn’t use the poison for herself.” Lastly, when Tobe as a narrator talks about the scene when Miss Emily greeted Homer Barron at dusk in paragraph 4, he describes Miss Emily’s greeting “with sad smile on her face”. He already knew Miss Emily had bought a poison and furnished Homer Barron’s room as for a bridal. Also he knew “some other corpse is still in the abandoned room” because he never saw Homer Barron again after he went inside the room. He still didn’t mention it to anybody because of the duty to protect Miss Emily. Yet, it was stressful and gloomy staying in the “dreadful house”, but he still had respect for her and admitted that “she had been a tradition, a history, and the last real lady in this town.” (last paragraph).

To conclude, the original story’s narrator focuses on the relationship between the town people and Miss Emily, whereas the new version’s narrator describes the relationship between Tobe and Miss Emily more effectively. Each point of view can provide us different information even though it is a same story.

0

0