A Symbol Of Neglect Essay Research Paper — страница 2

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father and Miss Emily “leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head”. Inside and out, both the building and the body in which Miss Emily live are in a state of deterioration like tarnished metal. Finally, the townspeople’s descriptions of both house and occupant reveal a common intractable arrogance. At one point the house is described as “stubborn” as if it were ignoring the surrounding decay. Similarly, Miss Emily proudly overlooks the deterioration of her once grand residence. This motif recurs as she denies her father’s death, refuses to discuss or pay taxes, ignores town gossip about her being a “fallen woman,” and does not tell the druggist why she is purchasing arsenic. Both the house and Miss Emily become traps for that strongest representative of

the twentieth century, Homer Barron, laborer, outsider, confirmed bachelor. Just as the house seems to reject progress and updating, so does Miss Emily, until both of them become decaying anachronisms. Through descriptions of the house that resemble descriptions of Miss Emily Grierson, “A Rose for Emily” emphasizes the way that beauty and elegance can become grotesquely distorted through neglect and lack of love. In this story, the house deteriorates for forty years until it becomes ugly; Miss Emily’s physical and emotional condition dissipate in a similar manner.