Analysis of Love in “A Rose for Emily” Emily Grierson Essay Example for Free

Analysis of Love in â€Å"A Rose for Emily† Emily Grierson Essay Love was finally seen as infatuation when the dead body was found lying in the bed outlasting fake love. People can feel like they truly love someone, but actually, they only have a short-lived admiration for that person. Faulkner clearly creates excellent examples of mistaking infatuation for true love. Infatuation can cause people to perform stupid deeds that people normally would not do. In â€Å"A Rose for Emily,† Emily Grierson mistakes infatuation for love causing her to buy arsenic poison, kill Homer Barron, and retain his body after his death. Earlier in Emily’s life, she was unable to find love because of the lack of finding or keeping suitors. The reason she could not find or keep suitors was that of her father. Her father did not believe that any man was worthy enough to marry his daughter. His family was of higher rank so Emily could not marry a man of a lower social class. This caused her to never find love and to never experience true feelings for someone. The only love she knew and had was the unusual love from her father. She did not have a mother figure in her life to her father’s love was all she had. When her father died, Emily had no love at all. She was truly alone without her father and since her father denied all men, she was left with nobody. Emily’s thoughts of love are twisted because she never got to experience true feelings of her own. This is why Emily becomes insane and acts irrationally. She does not know what love truly feels like and can not process what love really is. She only knows the temporary feelings she has. Hogan 2 Sometime after her father died, a man, by the name of Homer Barron, comes into her life. Emily and Homer start to interact with each other, and she starts to develop feelings that she has never experienced before. She starts confusing those feelings and lust for love. Emily begins to think that sinc e Homer is spending time with her it is love, but she is completely wrong. Emily starts to act irrationally and goes to the druggist to buy arsenic poison. She tells the druggist that she wants the best poison he has. After the druggist names a couple, he tells her, â€Å"They’ll kill anything up to an elephant. But you want is† (paragraph10, sectionIII). Emily cuts him off and tells him she wants arsenic. The druggist tells her she has to tell him what she will do with it, but she just looks at him â€Å"†¦erect, her face like a strained flag† (paragraph14, sectionIII). She continued staring at him and he finally gives her the poison. This shows how Emily was determined to buy the poison no matter what because she has the false love for Homer. Emily bought the arsenic because of her infatuation with Homer Barron. She did not want to lose him because she thought she was in love with him. Emily was afraid that she would be alone for the rest of her life after she found out that â€Å"Homer himself had remarkedhe liked men† (paragraph1, section). Since Homer liked men, he would not marry her and love her the way she wanted to be loved. Even though that was true, it would not stop her from trying to change his mind, even if she had to use the arsenic to do it. Emily was unaware of the things infatuation was causing her to do. Emily, mind truly lost, kills Homer Barron, but before she does she tries to change his mind about liking men. Miss Emily prepares for their wedding, gathering every necessity appropriate. She buys a man’s toilet set in silver with his initials on it and a complete outfit of men’s clothing for him. Homer comes to see Emily one day and that was the last time people see Hogan 3 him. People believe that they are on a long honeymoon, but actually, she has him locked upstairs. When Emily realizes her efforts to persuade Homer to return the love has failed, she resorts to poisoning him with the arsenic. She believes this is the only way she can have him forever. Instead of giving Homer a proper burial, Miss Emily keeps his body upstairs, so she can have him for the rest of her life. The false love she has causes her to keep a corpse in her home until she dies. She not only keeps his dead body but also sleeps in the bed with it. This type of psychotic behavior is because of her infatuation for Homer Barron. Also, her lust for Homer causes her to have sexual relations with his dead body. Emily is still a virgin since her father did not approve of any of her suitors, so she never marries or takes her maidenhead. She did not want to die a virgin so she has intercourse with her so-called true love even though he is not alive. This is justified in her head because she loves him, but little did she know, she was only infatuated with him. When Miss Emily died and w as buried, people went upstairs and opened the room where Homer’s body was. His body had â€Å"apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace† (paragraph7, sections). This showed how Emily sleeps and cuddles with his dead body and how psychotic she has become because of infatuation and lust. Miss Emily only wants true love, but she did not know what true love really is. She mistakes infatuation and lust for love. Her father stops her from experiencing love by denying all of her suitors. Then when Homer gives her some attention and friendship, she grows temporary feelings for him and lets them drive her to do insane deeds. She buys the arsenic poison, kills Homer with the poison, and instead of properly disposing his body she keeps it so she would always have him to love. Miss Emily is not a bad person, she just does not have someone so she Hogan 4 is lonely. In reality Emily Grierson only wants to love and wants to be loved, but the lack of receiving it causes her to mistake love for lust and infatuation leading to the demise of her mind.