Who Is To Blame? Society Or The Poor Emily?

Women ought to behave in a kind, gentle, modest, loving, selfless, and emotional manner. If they don't, they will be labeled as shrews and viragos—the insane. Regardless of their lives, society has forced women to fit into these stereotypes. What if they do not fit? What happens to those who don't?

In his short story, A Rose for Emily, William Faulkner touches upon the issue of whether women are accountable for their own flawed behavior or if societal circumstances cause them to act this way.

The plot revolves around Miss Emily's refusal to let go of the fading Antebellum era, as well as how society's ideals shaped and impacted her. She anticipated nothing to change and did not wish to modernize as a form of resistance to both patriarchy and her fate, which was decided on her behalf by everyone. The main conflict in the story was between Emily and her father. His solitude and controlling approach to her life caused her to miss out on many opportunities. And when he died, he did not leave her anything but their house. She so bonded with him that after his death, when she was left all alone, she could not leave his body for three days. After a while, she dated a man that her father would never approve of, Homer Barron. She was terrified that he would also abandon her like her father, so she killed him and preserved his dead body in her upstairs bedroom. Her strict father killed all of her chances, so Emily killed her only chance, who was going to leave her.

Townspeople in Jefferson were trying to bring their town into the New South, and they were not so different from her father. They had seen her as an obligation. Emily had been tolerated as a responsibility rather than a neighbor. She was left alone and isolated in the house, and no one acknowledged her as a person. They only respected her when there was a man present. They weren't approaching her; instead, they were mocking her and gossiping about her. She was alienated from all parts of society. Even when there was an unbearable smell coming from her house due to Homer's decaying body, nobody approached her to inform her about the issue. So they sprayed the outside of the house rather than examining the inside and resolving the problem.

Constant criticism and oppression caused her insanity. Her actions, such as dating a man that her father would not approve of, cutting her hair short at the time, and practically all of her other actions, were acts of disobedience against societal norms imposed on her. She refused to change and adapt to the new generation's contemporary views, and instead stuck to the morality of the old. She was represented as the villain, but rather, she was the victim of her father, the townspeople, and society. Emily represented the Old South; she opposed and resisted change, yet she died alone.