It is a hard a process to lose someone who you care about. Whether it is to them no being present in your life or if it is to death. As a result, different people handle certain situations differently. In the short story A Rose for Emily, Emily is faced with the lost of a loved one and in return develops a psychological disorder.
At the beginning of the story we are told of the death of Miss Emilys father. The towns people come to her house to paid respects to her father but she denial that he is dead. Miss Emily keeps up this act for three days and eventually breaks down; she allows the towns people to come and bury him. After the death of her father; Miss Emily is stricken with grief causing her to hardly leave her house.
The summer after Miss Emily fathers death, Miss Emily starts seeing a young, colored man named Homer Baron. The towns people are happy that Miss Emily is dating because she is thirty years old and is still single. The relatives of Miss Emily come to see her and to voice their concerns about her dating Homer. Miss Emily tells her cousins that her and Homer are married. While her cousins come to visit Homer is nowhere to be found. However after her cousins leave Homer returns three days after and is never seen again.
When Miss Emilys father dies she disappears into her house and is not seen for a couple of days. As soon as she does reappear she looks totally different. When she appears her hair is cut short like a little girl. In psychology this term is called regression. Regression is a defense mechanism leading to the temporary reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more adult way. A person may revert to an old, usually immature behavior to ventilate feelings of frustration. Regression only becomes a problem when it is used frequently to avoid adult situations and causes problems in the individual's life. Miss Emily does this to cope with her fathers death.
When her father was alive he controlled who Miss Emily could date. In her fathers eyes no one was good enough for his daughter when she was younger. Like it was mention before, Miss Emily was single until she was thirty when she met Homer. Even when Miss Emily went to the store and asked for the best poison the druggist knew something was not right. He asked her several times what she needed it for and she responded by tilting her head and smiling; meanwhile when she was buying the poison she was still dating Homer. Homer had made it clear that he like men and he would drink with the younger guys at the bar but in Miss Emilys eyes she saw marriage.
Miss Emily lived in her house until she dies at the age of seventy-four. Once the towns people bury Miss Emily they go through the house and find mens clothing. As they continue to travel throughout the house they come across a room with a bed in it. When they pull back the covers they discovery a decompose corpse which is Homers body. When they look at the pillow next to him; it had an indent in it with a long strain of gray hair.
In conclusion, Miss Emily was not in the right state of mind after her father dies. The way she tries to cope with his death, first with denial then with the defense mechanism of regression. Then when Miss Emily thought Homer was going to leave her she proceeds to buy rat poison for him. The most disturbing part is when Homer is found at the end of the story, and Miss Emilys hair is found on the pillow next to his dead body. Therefore causing one to believe Miss Emily has been sleeping with Homers dead body.
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