The Nature Of A Town’s Obsession

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Term Paper Title	The Nature Of A Town’s Obsession
# of Words	661
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	2.64

The Nature of a Town’s Obsession


     In American society, it has become a second nature for
people to put others on a pedestal, thus allowing a harsher
criticism of their actions. This practice provides members of
society with less time to evaluate their own faults. The
townspeople in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily separated
Emily Grierson from themselves on the basis of family status.
Throughout the story they continuously place her actions as being
on a higher level than those of other people in the town in order
to put her actions under a harsher scrutinization than their own.

     When Homer Barron comes to their town, the townspeople watch
in earnest to see how the relationship between he and Emily
develops. As it progresses, the people begin to add the town
constructed model of how Emily   should behave to their
evaluation of the affair between her and Homer. Though it would
perhaps have been considered acceptable for another woman of the
town to fall in love with such a man, they consoled themselves
that “...a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a
day laborer.”(Pg. 74) They set her up as the model of their small
society so that when she fails they have a soul upon which to
place the blame for the wrongs in their society. For, not a long
period of time had elapses before “...some of the ladies began to
say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the
young people.”(Pg. 75)

     Amongst the swirling disapproval of the relationship between
Homer and Emily, the town seeks emotional guidance for Emily in
the form of her two cousins. “So she had blood - kin under her
roof again, and [they] sat back to watch the developments.”(75)
Emily, and her tribulations in life, have become a form of
entertainment. When a person is placed so high above others by
their peers, the subconscious expectation by their peers is that
the person who is deemed as superior will fail. In an effort to
cover their insecurities and failures in life, people create
drama outside of thems...

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