Miss Emily

Miss Emily, the protagonist in William Faulkner’s, “ A Rose for Emily” demonstrates her iron will to survive and even prevail through her lifetime of loneliness. At a young age, Miss Emily was denied her right to have any communication with any family members, other than her father. Not only did he forbid her to communicate with family, but he also ran off any man that tried to get close to Miss Emily. Her father was her backbone and made all of her decisions for her. Many of the townspeople think Miss Emily is being cheated, but Miss Emily doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, Miss Emily loves her father dearly and is torn apart when she receives the news that he has passed away. For many days Miss Emily is overwhelmed and insist her father is still alive; she can not accept the fact that her father is no longer around. Heartbroken Miss Emily searches within herself and finds the iron will she needs to go on living after her

father’s death.

Not only does Miss Emily have the iron will to survive, but she has pride , and her pride will not let her give up. She has so much pride that she refuses to take charity from anyone, but at one time she does allow Colonel Sartoris to take care of her taxes. The story Colonel Sartoris tells Miss Emily, is that her father loaned the town some money and in return she did not need to pay taxes. The Colonel is one of the three people Miss Emily truly respects so whatever he says she strongly believes. So when the town authorities try to contact Miss Emily about the taxes situation, she totally ignores them. Finally a few of the men decide to confront her face to face, but it gets them nowhere. Miss Emily insists that she owes no tax money in Jefferson and they need to take the problem up with Colonel Sartoris, even though he has been dead for nearly ten years.

Miss Emily thinks so highly of herself, that it intimidates everyone around her. At one point, the townspeople were complaining about the awful smell around Miss Emily’s house, and was wanting the Judge to say something to her, instead he stands up for her. He doesn’t think it’s necessary to say such a thing to a woman, especially a woman like Miss Emily. Finally four men decide to take matters into their own hands by sneaking around her house late at night sprinkling lime everywhere. On another occasion Miss Emily intimidates a druggist by giving him stares instead of talking with him. Miss Emily goes until the store and ask the druggist for some arsenic and when he replies that by law he needs to know why she is purchasing arsenic, Miss Emily just gives him a stare. So frightened by Miss Emily, he runs to the back and