In the story “A Rose for Emily”, Emily is the main character. Her character analysis includes what other people thought of her, what she said and did, what the narrator tells us about her, and how the setting reflects her character. Emily was born into a family of great wealth and rich past. With Emily being highly concealed by her father, she had to live with many restrictions in her life resulting in the alteration of her personality. Yet as a person Emily reacts to her situation in her youth filled years like any child would during this time. Emily was reserved and had the utmost respect as could be seen in this example “So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly”. Although this does not state her obedience, it states how her parents were always expecting a lot from her. Emily had quickly grown into a prestigious lady that her father always wanted her to be. Soon Emily began to look at the world on a different level. To Emily, “ordinary” or “lower class” men were something that she was not used to. After some time Emily reappeared as what the people of the town would say “a girl, with vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows- sort of tragic and serene.” It is this image that shows the reader that her father’s death was another event that changed her yet again. This time it was into an independent woman with future values. Emily however would not let the fact that she was a women bring her down into the world of the poor. She would hold her head up high and work to make a living and not live by somebody else’s support. In the eyes of the townsmen, she was still considered as “Poor Emily” but this did not discourage her at all and allowed her to hold her head up higher. Later on Emily finds out that Homer did not want to commit to her as their relationship went on. This event is another changing point in Emily’s character and shows that even though she was the last Grierson, she was still going to act like a true noble woman and get what she wanted. In conclusion, Emily is clearly not a sick or twisted woman but a woman that is fighting for her right to live and be happy as much as she can. It is the damage that was inflicted upon her that exists within her form the moment her father dies till the moment that Homer Barron leaves that makes her a woman of strong wits and beliefs. Her fathers influence is what made her a firm woman and her pursuit of happiness.
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