The story from William Faulkner “A Rose for Emily” initially disturbed me, but I also found amusement in the stereotypes the author uses throughout this work. He makes you think of the stereotypes that we perceive on a daily basis. If you pay attention to the story, you can tell where the plot is going, but you do not want to believe at first that this little old lady is a murderer. This made me think about the judgments that I make in my everyday life. This story is a reminder that we can never judge a book by its cover, and if we delve deeper into someone’s life you may be surprised at what you may find.
Faulkner I believe is trying to make a statement about the labels that humans put upon each other. Telling a story of how looks may be deceiving. The author foreshadows the climax throughout the story bringing attention first to the smell coming from the house that Miss Emily lived in, then the purchasing of arsenic, and the leaving of Emily’s suitor after, explaining that he was not after female companionship. You can tell that something is not right. This story shows how judgmental we as humans can be for better or worse. The town dismissed any wrong doing that Emily may have done because she was a little old lady; they felt sorry for Emily and treated her as if she deserved their pity. Because of her father chasing off any available suitors, so unknown to the townspeople she was a murderer in disguise. I found it amusing that the town’s people could not get the courage up to talk to miss Grierson about the smell coming from her house, they couldn't even get her to pay her taxes. they townspeople innocently assumed the smell was anything other than the death of a person. The town also did not take into account that she had lived with the dead body of her father in the home and had been accustomed to this behavior already. The town assumed she would kill herself after her companion had "left town,"and did not think anything funny about homer baron going missing. Let alone thinking that this sweet old lady, someone that had no clue to what was going on in the world around her. The author shows this when he explains that Emily had dismissed her tax liability as though she had known nothing about It, and the city council just dismissed this as her being naive. I think that Miss Grierson was just playing naive and was smarter than she let on. Playing into her stereotype and getting away with murder.
I ask how many times we let people’s stereotypes get in the way of accurately judging this persons character. This story I believe shows us that we cannot judge a book by its cover, and we should never take people at face value. You never know if there is a murderer crocheting next to you on the bus, or that person you think is a bit crazy but we consider “harmless” because they are the sweet old man/woman that lives up your street. This story reminds me of an experience that I have had with a neighbor, a sweet old man that hangs out on his stoop most summer days watching the day go by. He is a personable individual and sociable with the neighbors. I would never have assumed that he was outside watching the neighborhood children as he sits in front of his home on these summer days. Come to find out he is a convicted child molester, and he has been in and out of jail throughout his life for violating children. I look at his extracurricular activities with a bit more scrutiny with this information and the innocent old man now creeps me out when he is outside watching the neighborhood kids playing.
