Monday, January 28, 2008

William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily

The people of this town describe Emily as some what of a hermit. It is said that before her father died he turned away a lot of the men that came to marry her and after her father died she didn't seem to want to leave the house.

A question that came to my mind after reading what the towns people have to say about Emily is, Does she avoid leaving her house because she's upset or because she is just sick and tired of having people whisper and stare at her when ever she's in public?

Does the people in this town mean well when they sneak onto her property and sprinkle lime so whatever stinks will stop stinking or are they just thinking of themselves and there wants?

That brings up a bigger question. When Emily died, did the people come to her home out of respect or simply because they were curious and wanted to see whats hardly any have seen before?

I guess you could ask that about all people. Does anyone does anythings solely out of good nature? Or is there always an ulterior motive? Even the nicest people who would do just about anything for people have an ulterior motive. It may be to create good karma or to look good in the eyes of God. Regardless if the motive is good or bad, most people do things because it will some how work out to benefit them in the end.

1 comment:

Erinn said...

Courtney,
Great questions here about both Emily's and the townspeople's motivations for their behavior. If you don't mind, I would like to pose some of these questions to the class and hear their responses...

Sadly, your comment that "most people do things because it will some how work out to benefit them in the end" is probably true. I think especially in our self-centered culture, most people are interested in their own personal gain (whether monetary gain, personal gain, etc.) rather then helping out another human being just out of kindness.