Second Rough Draft

A Marxist Reading of A Rose for Emily

A Rose for Emily is a short story published in 1930 by American author William Faulkner. Marxist criticism is a type of criticism in which literary works are viewed as the product of work and whose practitioners emphasize the role of class and ideology as they reflect, propagate, and even challenge the prevailing social order. Rather than viewing texts as repositories for hidden meanings, Marxist critics view texts as material products to be understood in broadly historical terms. In short, literary works are views as a product of work (and hence of realm of production and consumption we call economics)” (Murfin and Ray).  Marxist criticism started with Karl Marx and Karl Marx believed that literature shows how that particular society’s economic system is responsible for everything and everything in society. Karl Marx also believed that the history of a society is also a history of class clashes and struggles. Soon this was developed into Marxist Literary Theory. A Rose for Emily is a perfect short story to interrupt using Marxism because the story is pretty much entirely all about class. Just because one’s social and class is high it does not necessarily make them a happy individual. A Rose for Emily proves this because Emily was not what she appeared to be. She was an unhappy woman who was living in the past where she was wealthy, conflicted over her love life, and probably had a mental disorder. William Faulkner weaves all of this into the story without ever hearing Emily's father and barely hearing Emily's point of view. We almost completely hear the story from the town's people’s stories and the narrator.

Emily Grierson used to teach china painting and this represents that Emily is finically well off because only middle and upper class individuals do because china painting is rather consuming and quite expensive, most people would not be spending money of china-painting. ”A deputation waited upon her, Knocked at the door through which no visitor had passed since she ceased giving china painting lessons eight or ten years earlier” Since Emily has not taught china-painting in about 10 years and she was fine financially then it shows a lot about just how well off Emily and her father were. China also seems to be a representation of Emily herself, china represents that she is wealthy and when Emily stopped teaching china-painting it resembles when Emily stopped going out and being an active part of society.

Emily was treated as a commodity within her town. “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument…”. (Faulkner, 1). “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1864 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor-he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron—remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father onto perpetuity. Not that Miss’ Emily would have accepted charity” (Faulkner, 1).This shows that the other town’s people viewed Emily and her father as people who were high and mighty, almost royalty in their town and that Miss Emily viewed herself in the same sort of way when it says she would never have accepted charity from someone. This stresses to the reader that Emily is of higher status. Also, it says that Emily and her father were thought of to be less like regular people and more like town's property because of their high status and Emily's father's attitude. He did not associate himself with regular people, to the extent that he would not even let Emily see someone romantically that was of lower class.

Emily’s father viewed that since they were financially well off and high class that suitors for his daughter would have to be of very high class as well. “believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were. None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. We had long thought of them as tableau; Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn’t have turned down all of her chances id they has really materialized” (Faulkner, 2). Emily’s father would drive away any man that was in any class longer than him and his daughter. “Her father does not appear directly in the whole story, but his influence exists everywhere. “We had long thought of them as a tableau, ground, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door” This is the remark of townspeople about the relationship between Emily and her father, which shows vividly the dominance of the paternalistic father over the silent daughter. The overprotective father manipulates Emily’s everyday life like a despotic king and drives away all her suitors so that she is still single when she gets to be thirty. He does not think that any of the young men are quite good enough for his daughter. Her father is the only man with whom she has a close relationship, so after her father has died, she cannot admit the fact of his death and does not let people dispose of his body until “they were about to resort to law and force”. Emily’s domineering and overprotective father does not allow her to form a normal relationship with any men because he thinks none of them is a good match for his daughter. He is arrogant, proud, and looks down upon these young men courting his daughter. Emily is accustomed to living under this kind of severe and inappropriate paternal protection. There is not any tender and thoughtful maternal love. Therefore, she has no voice in her family and she cannot dare to strive for her own happiness and marriage. The long time of her father’s control suffocates the sentiment of an ordinary girl. Her emotions are suppressed, like a dormant volcano which will not break out unless a spark appears in due conditions. Besides, the overprotection also makes the father and daughter count on each other: the father does not allow his daughter to marry any other man while the daughter also takes her father’s control as a kind of protection and security, so she denies accepting his death and she cannot live in the world with a feeling of being dispossessed and helpless” (Yang, 1851).  You do not actually get to see or hear how Emily feels about her father not letting her see anyone but one can assume from the ending that Emily felt conflicted about it because she seemed to obey her father's wishes but she also slept beside Homer Baron's decomposing corpse.

When Emily’s father died, the town’s people view on Emily soured because she was not as financially stable as she had once been and she was in the same class as the rest of the town. “When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad. At least they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less” (Faulkner, 2). People were happy that Emily no longer had her high class status. Despite their lack of respect toward Emily, they still tried to preserve the illusion of her formerly high status and her perceived greatness. Even when Emily had the corpse of her father in their house and tried to claim to the other town’s people that her father was not dead. The town’s people did not blame her. “We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will” (Faulkner, 3). They tried to reason excuses with themselves to show that she was alright. The town’s people pitied her and they thought it had just been a part of the grief process at the time so they did not assume she was crazy, but in the end when they found the grey strand of hair next to Homer’s decomposing body, they most certainty did. “Emily’s attachment to her father had lasting repercussions: “The Oedipal desires expressed in Emily’s affair with Homer were never recognized by the people of Jefferson, and Emily herself was aware of them only as subconscious longings”. On the contrary, the townspeople are extremely sensitive to Emily’s psychological state. When Emily tries to keep her father’s corpse, they “believed that she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will” The fact that certain people in town knew that Homer was in the upstairs room argues a similar recognition of Emily’s need to cling to Homer as she had tried to cling to her father: only, this time, they let her keep the body” (Getty, 231-232). This shows that the town’s people pitied Emily and they turned a blind eye to anything that she had done, although the whole town had known that there was a strange smell emitted from Emily’s house and they knew that Emily had purchased arsenic from the druggist. The town’s officials just sprinkled lime on her property to make the smell disappear and everyone ignored Emily’s purchase of arsenic and Homer Baron’s disappearance. This implies that the town’s officials knew about Emily’s murder of Homer Baron and that she had kept his decaying body in her room for forty years.

People seemed to regard Emily and her father as commodities but in reality Emily lost much of her money when her father died and her house nor her were in the best condition. Everyone seemed to ignore this because Emily and her father still had high statuses from a previous time period where being born into money meant automatic prestige and high status and respect. “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, [1870s] set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighbourhood; only Miss Emily's house was left lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps and eyesores among eyesores” (Faulkner, 1). This shows just how in shambles Emily's father's house truly was and how it was decaying. It also mentions how it used to be on the town's most popular, fancy street but now it is among the town's old, decaying past and it's new, modernism. “And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedarbemused cemetery among the ranked and among the ranked and anonymous graves of the Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson” (Faulkner, 1). This shows that Emily was the last person of the old era and after she passed away no one was left who remembered the older era of wealth, respect, and family money. “received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy”(Faulkner, 1). This shows that Emily was outdated. The paper she used was an archaic shape, meaning it was old and no longer used. Emily Grierson was the last of her generation. “…she no longer is part of the old order of aristocratic families, because she is the last Grierson; when her father dies, she is not so much part of the Grierson line but left dangling at the end of a patrilineal lineage” (Harris, 176). She is the death of an old time.

William Falkner wrote A Rose for Emily in 1930 and it has since become a classic short story about gossip, wealth, murder, and a decaying woman. Through the town’s people’s stories Falkner has also talked about how Emily Grierson was an unhappy woman who was living in the past where she was wealthy, conflicted over her love life, and probably had a mental disorder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited Page

 

Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." A Rose for Emily. Web. 13 May 2015.

Getty, Laura J. "Faulkner's a Rose for Emily." The Explicator 63.4 (2005): 230-34. Faulkner's A ROSE FOR EMILY.. Taylor & Francis Ltd. Web. 13 May 2015.

Harris, A. "In Search of Dead Time: Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"" KronoScope 7.2 (2007): 169-83. In Search of Dead Time: Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily". . Brill. Web. 13 May 2015.

Murfin, Ross, and Supryia M. Ray. "DEFINITION OF MARXIST CRITICISM." VirtuaLit: Critical Approaches. Bedford Books, 1998. Web. 13 May 2015.

Yang, Pingping. "A Road to Destruction and Self-destruction: The Same Fate of Emily and Elly." Theory and Practice in Language Studies 3.10 (2013): 1850-854. A Road to Destruction and Self-destruction: The Same Fate of Emily and Elly. Academy Publication. Web. 13 May 2015.

 

 

Thesis Paper Planning

Just because one’s social and class is high it does not necessarily make them a happy individual. A Rose for Emily proves this because Emily was not what she appeared to be. She was an unhappy woman who was living in the past, conflicted over her love life,  and probably had a mental disorder. William Faulkner weaves all of this into the story without ever hearing Emily's father and barely hearing Emily's point of view. We almost completely hear the story from the town's peoples stories and the narrator.

• elobaeate further into paper with examples and quotes

Final Draft - Please look it over before I submit it. Thanks!!!

A Cultural Criticism of Fifty Shades of Grey: Not Just Who, But How?

            When Fifty Shades of Grey was released, it took the world by storm.  It is one of the fastest and bestselling books of all time.  Author E.L. James began the book as a work of Twilight fanfiction, another hugely popular series of books.  What Twilight did not have, however, was a BDSM element.  BDSM is a blanket term for bondage/discipline, domination/submission, and sadism/masochism.  In Fifty Shades of Grey, we follow the story of Anastasia Steele, a shy, awkward, college student working in a hardware store.  She is asked by her much more confident roommate to conduct an interview for the school newspaper, who is sick.  When Anastasia, or Ana, goes to the interview, she is met with Christian Grey, a self-made billionaire, who because of his wealth and power, tries to stay out of the media as much as possible.  Christian, immediately infatuated with Ana, pursues her relentlessly, ultimately confiding in Ana that, “the only sort of relationship [he is] interested in,” is one where he is dominant in every way, and she will be his submissive (James, 103).  Ana signs a non-disclosure agreement, and they begin a tumultuous relationship that spans the course of three books, ultimately ending in them getting married and having two children, leaving the BDSM out of their lives in favor of a ‘vanilla’ life.

            When you remove Christian’s need for dominance in every aspect of Ana’s life, what you really have in Fifty Shades of Grey, is the very conventional love story that we have all read at one point or another in our lives: two people meet, fall in love, and save each other from themselves.  The BDSM element, as well as issues of low self-esteem, childhood physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, and abandonment, take Fifty Shades of Grey from being just another Disney fairy tale to being one of the most controversial books of late.  Regardless of how you might feel about these books, the overall effect that they are having on our society are plain to see.  The clash of negative and positive feminist views of Fifty Shades of Grey are helping to redefine what it means to be married, and how people can function within their marriage in terms of gender roles and sexuality addressed in today’s society.

Today, you can’t seem to get away from the word ‘feminist’.  It’s in popular music, it’s on the television, and some of your favorite celebrities are identifying as feminists.  It’s become the buzzword of the decade.  So, it’s no surprise that there is so much criticism from feminists of Fifty Shades of Grey.  On the Radical Feminist Hub, blogger ‘Smash’ claims that “Freedom is slavery.  Submissiveness is empowering.  BDSM erotica is feminist… [These are] just a few of the lies that patriarchal culture has served up for women” (Downing, 94).  What is very interesting, is that it’s surprisingly difficult to find peer-reviewed articles condemning Fifty Shades of Grey.  Most of the outrage seems to be on blogs and in the media, not from well-respected critical thinkers.

            Fifty Shades of Grey has come under fire online and on the news for several reasons.  One of these is that the book seems to enforce traditional gender roles.  When questioned by Ana about the meaning of ‘dominant,’ Christian explains that, “it means I want you to willingly surrender yourself to me, in all things…I have rules, and I want you to comply with them.  They are for your benefit and my pleasure.  If you follow these rules to my satisfaction, I shall reward you.  If you don’t, I shall punish you, and you will learn” (James, 100-1).  Ana must obey Christian at all times, or she will be punished physically.  Christian goes further, saying, “The more you submit, the greater my joy – it’s a very simple equation” (James, 100).  Carey Purcell, in an article titled, “Fifty Shades of Feminism,” says that Ana’s “wanting to please Christian apparently includes subjecting herself to verbal and emotional abuse from him” (Purcell).  The concept of a woman completely submitting and obeying a man is as traditional as it gets, reminiscent of Biblical law.  Women were stoned to death for disobeying their husbands.  Purcell also expresses her concern about the relationship between Ana and Christian, claiming that it is one of the “incredibly – and dangerously – abusive relationships portrayed” in popular fiction (Purcell).  Christian stalks Ana, is in control of her grooming habits and birth control, and demands that she go to the gym four times weekly, and is even in control of her eating habits, as written in their contract: “The Submissive will eat regularly to maintain her health and well-being from a prescribed list of foods (Appendix 4).  The Submissive will not snack between meals, with the exception of fruit” (James, 105).  Purcell fears the “book’s influence on people and how they view romantic relationships” (Purcell). 

            Another place that Fifty Shades of Grey is taking fire from is from religious groups.  In an article discussing the upcoming major motion picture based on the first book.  In an article written by Gregory Wakeman, “3 Bold Reasons Why This Religious Group Hates Fifty Shades of Grey”, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, says, “The irony is not lost that the film’s main character is named ‘Christian,’ while this film presents anything but a ‘Christian’ view of intimacy” (Wakeman).  Wildmon continues, saying, “The Center for Disease Control’s standards of emotional abuse and sexual violence include nearly every one of the interactions between the two main characters” (Wakemon).  A press release from RAAP, or the Religious Alliance Against Pornography, states that “the story is presented as a romance novel but it is far beyond that in its content.  The theme is that bondage, dominance, and sadomasochism are normal and pleasurable.  In the story the young Miss Steele is urged to sing a contract becoming a sex slave and agreeing to an abusive and degrading relationship….the books and the movie undermine everything that we believe as members of the faith community” (RAAP).

            Interestingly, Fifty Shades of Grey has a huge amount of feminist supporters.  When Katie Rophie, in an article titled “Spanking Goes Mainstream,” said that women “may then be especially drawn to this particular romanticized, erotically charged, semi-pornographic idea of female submission at a moment in history when male dominance is shakier than it has ever been,” Rophie was met with harsh criticism (Rophie).  This statement, implying that women are both tired of and bored with gender equality, and seeking a more comfortable and submissive role sparked an outpouring of rejections of this claim by the liberal feminist movement.  In response to Rophie, blogger ‘Maya’ on Feministing, says, “Really, I’m not perplexed by [fantasies of submission]. And I am in no way appalled.  I am fully in support of anyone doing whatever (safe, consensual) thing that they want to do to get themselves off.  Feminists for Orgasms!” (Downing, 94.)  An article posted by The Daily Dot, titled “Why Fifty Shades of Grey is Actually Good for Women,” written by EJ Dickson, claims that “[Dickson has] a hard time buying feminist protesters’ arguments that Fifty Shades of Grey promotes violence against women… [it’s] a cultural phenomenon that has brought non-normative sex and female desire to the mainstream…Fifty Shades of Grey has done far more good than harm” (Dickson).

            If we push aside the feminism for a minute, there are even more positive outcomes to be seen.  Lucy Jones, in her article “Analyzing Agency: Reader Responses to Fifty Shades of Grey,” claims that the book cultivates discussions about “non-normative” love and sex” (Jones, 226).  Jones also finds that “while the books seem to be presenting a male actor and a female recipient, the readers of these books instead define the relationship in terms of passion” (Jones, 233).  Instead of focusing on the genders of Christian and Ana, it is the emotional connection that they share that is the most powerful take away.  One of her readers responded by saying, “If more people had intense passionate relationships like this (sub/dom or not) A LOT more marriages would be healthier and happier” (Jones, 233).  Pushing further, instead of seeing Ana as being dominated by Christian, readers see Ana as being in control of the relationship.  Ana is “in control of her own sexual choices…it seems, then, that it is possible for women readers to gain a sense of agency in talking about these novels” (Jones, 233).

 In the United States, the discussion about sexuality has already started, but Fifty Shades of Grey has stimulated that conversation further.  Marriage equality is happening in a primarily Judo-Christian oriented county.  Non-normative sexuality is being discussed.  We are challenging gender stereotypes.  We are no longer talking just about who we are allowed to love, but how we are allowed to love them.  As a society, we are becoming more able to accept the choices of others.  Fifty Shades of Grey is one more talking point in a conversation that this country so desperately needs to continue having.

Response

I would like to start by saying that I read all three books in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.  I did not, however, particularly enjoy them.  It became a job because I do not like the idea of starting a story and not finishing it.  However, when we talked about cultural criticism, it occurred to me that Fifty Shades of Grey would be a nice fit with this school of thought in terms of what is happening in our country today in relation to marriage equality and LGBTQ acceptance.  While there are no actual LGBTQ elements to the story, the BDSM element has gotten a lot of criticism from people who neither practice it nor understand it, and that is some common ground.

            If I had done a reading with New Criticism in mind, I wouldn’t have had much of a paper at all.  With my only focus being on the actual text, I would have found an exceptionally lackluster book.  I would have focused on literary devices used.  I would have looked for metaphors, like: “I feel the color in my cheeks rising again.  I must be the color of The Communist Manifesto” (James, 28).  I would have looked for what other New Critical critics have to say.

            There is some information in Fifty Shades of Grey that would lend itself to a Marxist reading.  Christian Grey is a boy who is abused and neglected as a child, and then adopted by a wealthy family.  After Christian grows up, he starts his own company, which ends up being a hugely successful one.  I would have looked at Christian’s philanthropy – he funds an organization that targets areas of the world that don’t have enough food.  He feels strongly about this because of his childhood hunger: “Agricultural dysfunction is rife within these parts of the world, and the result is ecological and social destruction.  I have known what it’s like to be profoundly hungry.  This is a very personal journey for me” (James, 237).  I would have discussed the fact that Christian’s difficult childhood drives him to be wealthy.

Works Cited

Dickson, EJ. “Why Fifty Shades of Grey is actually good for women”.  The Daily Dot. 16 Feb. 2015. Web. 12 May 2015.

Downing, Lisa. "Safewording! Kinkphobia And Gender Normativity In Fifty Shades Of Grey." Psychology & Sexuality 4.1 (2013): 92-102. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 May 2015.

James, E. L. Fifty Shades of Grey. New York: First Vintage, 2012.

Jones, Lucy, and Sara Mills. "Analyzing Agency: Reader Responses To Fifty Shades Of Grey." Gender & Language 8.2 (2014): 225-244. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 5 May 2015.

Purcell, Carey. ”Fifty Shades of Feminism – A Response of E. L. James’ ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’.” The Huffington Post. 2 Jan. 2013. Web. 1 May, 2015.

Religious Alliance Against Pornography. Fifty Shades of Grey. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Rophie, K. “Spanking Goes Mainstream.” The Daily Beast. 15 April 2012. Web. 4 May 2015.

Wakeman, Gregory. 3 Bold Reasons Why This Religious Group Hates Fifty Shades of Grey. Cinema Blend, n.d. Web. 12 May 2015.

Fan Fiction

Leisha Jones is the author of Contemporary Bildungsromans and the Prosumer Girl and I agree with her points, and one point in specific: Fan fiction. According to Jones girls are more likely to become a prosumer, which is a portmanteau of producer and consumer. I loved reading that because it was so accurate. I've wrote and read fan fiction my entire life, so I would be what Jones considers a prosumer (I just love this word). I have consumed both the product and in turn produced my own product based on the material that I had originally consumed. This is exactly what fan fiction is. You take media and you produce one-shots, poems, stories, etc using the original media's characters and you produce what you want. For example you can include your own character into a story (what's known as an OC), you can ship characters together that were not together in the original media, etc. Honestly the things you can do with fan fiction are honestly endless. I usually write and read fan fiction about anime/manga online and I love it because in my opinion you can get creative inside of a world that you love. In some cases it can even keep interest in the original media still alive. In my case I used to watch a lot of anime that aren't shown on television nowadays but online, there is still a community that keeps the interest alive through our own media.

My Favorite School of Theory

My favorite school of theory was New Criticism. At first I did not really like it but I started to like it while we were doing our first paper using a New Criticism method. Not at first, but in the end i liked it because of how close the poem was too the author's childhood. I had done "Those Winter Sunday's" by Robert Hayden and I felt like my interpretation of his poem was close to his actual childhood. He grew up in a rather poor African-American part of town and much of his struggle was found in his poem. I like the idea of just using imagery from a text to find the meaning, it seems so clear cut and perfect (although New Criticism has been disproved to be the best method). I still prefer this method because I read texts and I generally only focus on the text at hand (unless you're one of my favorite author's) so I only focus on the imagery most of the time. The only thing I do not really like about New Criticism is the idea of the "single best interpretation" because I believe that everyone thinks about things differently and not everyone will see the same thing in texts. For example, in A Rose for Emily, many people think Emily killed Homer Baron and many people think she has her problems but she didn't kill him. That's the only part of New Criticism that I don't particularly like, but other than that, it is probably my favorite school of theory.

Reflection Statement for A Rose for Emily

Reflection

I did a Marxist reading of A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner about how Emily was of high economic and social class but this highness in society was not enough to make her happy. I honestly only choose to do a Marxist reading of A Rose for Emily because it seemed the easiest to write. It was between A Rose for Emily or Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind and honestly I love the novel, but I felt like I did not have enough time to reread a novel and write an essay based on a literary theory. Plus A Rose for Emily seemed more clear cut and much more manageable to work with. The short story had a lot to do with Emily’s socio-economic background and that is a crucial element for any Marxist reading.

In all honesty if I had performed a Reader-Response analysis on A Rose for Emily I would not have included quotations that obviously point out Emily’s high status in society because it would not have applied to Reader-Response. If I had done a Reader-Response analysis on A Rose for Emily I would have focused on how the reader felt about Emily’s inter turmoil about liking Homer Baron but also being raised in a way where she would have to abide by her father’s ways of life. Her father believed anyone of lower class could not marry his daughter. I would elaborate on how as a reader that I would feel with those conflicting emotions and how I view Emily. For my quotations I would focus on parts of the short story where Emily’s thoughts were guessed from the fellow town’s people and based upon her actions.

If I had done a New Historical/Cultural theory I would have focused on the time period that A Rose for Emily takes place and talk about how that impacts the story. A Rose for Emily takes place at during the turn of the 19^th century into the 20^th century and a large portion of Emily’s life. She was born into a time when family names and statuses were respected and during her life she saw the downfall of this prestige and nobility. I would talk about the normalcies of the time period and use them to explain Emily’s actions. I would use quotations of historical dates and behaviors and I would also use examples within the text of common practices of culture within the story.

I did not like the other two school of theories for A Rose for Emily so I choose a Marxist reading. Plus it was the first idea that had come into my head and I just went for it because I just usually go off my first thoughts. I did not not usually writing a Marxist theory for A Rose for Emily but I think it was just because of the complexity of the actual paper’s requirements. I am not sure I would have enjoyed writing this paper no matter what school of theory it was. If I could not have written a Marxist reading of A Rose for Emily, I would have definitely written a New Historical/Cultural reading of A Rose for Emily because of all three theories, it sounds like it would be the most fun and interesting to research. If I had given more time to logically think all three options through, I would have probably done this approach but since it came to me while I had already started my topic within Marxism I did not change it. I would have dreaded writing a Reader-Response reading because I hate Reader-Response theories. The hardest part about writing this paper was the lack of specific secondary sources. 

Rough draft from before

Marxism and A Rose for Emily

A Rose for Emily is a short story published in 1930 by American author William Faulkner. Marxist criticism is a type of criticism in which literary works are viewed as the product of work and whose practitioners emphasize the role of class and ideology as they reflect, propagate, and even challenge the prevailing social order. Rather than viewing texts as repositories for hidden meanings, Marxist critics view texts as material products to be understood in broadly historical terms. In short, literary works are viewed as a product of work (and hence of the realm of production and consumption we call economics) (1). Marxist criticism started with Karl Marx and Karl Marx believed that literature shows how that particular society’s economic system is responsible for everything and everything in society. Karl Marx also believed that the history of a society is also a history of class clashes and struggles. Soon this was developed into Marxist Literary Theory. A Rose for Emily is a perfect short story to interrupt using Marxism because the story is pretty much entirely all about class.

Emily Grierson used to teach china painting and this represents that Emily is finically well off because only middle and upper class individuals do because china painting is rather consuming and quite expensive, most people would not be spending money of china-painting. ”A deputation waited upon her, Knocked at the door through which no visitor had passed since she ceased giving china painting lessons eight or ten years earlier”

Emily was treated as a commodity within her town. “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument…”. (1). “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1864 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor-he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron—remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father onto perpetuity. Not that Miss’ Emily would have accepted charity” (1).This shows that the other town’s people viewed Emily and her father as people who were high and mighty, almost royalty in their town and that Miss Emily viewed herself in the same sort of way when it says she would never have accepted charity from someone. This stresses to the reader that Emily is of higher status.

Emily’s father viewed that since they were financially well off and high class that suitors for his daughter would have to be of very high class as well. “believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were. None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. We had long thought of them as tableau; Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn’t have turned down all of her chances id they has really materialized” (2). Emily’s father would drive away any man that was in any class longer than him and his daughter.

When Emily’s father died, the town’s people view on Emily soured because she was not as financially stable as she had once been and she was in the same class as the rest of the town. “When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad. At least they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less” (2). People were happy that Emily no longer had her high class status. Despite their lack of respect toward Emily, they still tried to preserve the illusion of her formerly high status and her perceived greatness. Even when Emily had the corpse of her father in their house and tried to claim to the other town’s people that her father was not dead. The town’s people did not blame her. “We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will” (3). They tried to reason excuses with themselves to show that she was alright.

Just because one’s social and class is high it does not nessecraily make them an happy individual. A Rose for Emily proves this because Emily was not happy despite her high class. Although, after she had lost her financial stability, she still tried to get up with the façade of having a high class while she was shut away in her house. Also when she was conflicted about Homer Baron.