The Destined Tragic Love of Emily

CXL

  Her doomed tragedy by the traditional values and education: When she falls in love with the Yankee, she “carried her head high enough” in spite of all the rumors against her. She is the representative of the old values, but once she is in conflict with the society as an individual, she is in defiance of the traditional moral values unconsciously to seek for the realization of her value as an independent individual. Yet, when she succeeds in putting her will upon most people and let them accept the fact that she is going to be married, Homer Barron is going to desert her. She cannot bear such betrayal of her, which is against her will, so she kills him in order to own him. The traditional education she receives makes her form such an idea: one’s lover is like his private possessions. If she cannot get him, she will use violence to achieve her purpose. Since then, she loses her lover and happiness forever. She is absolutely desperate. Emily’s strong-willed personality and the traditional value and education cause her tragedy.

  Her doomed tragedy by the different values in the south and the north: Emily and Homer come from different world. “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition”, her death is “a fallen monument”. So Emily is regarded as a symbol of the traditional south and its value. And Homer Barron, a Yankee, “with niggers and mules and machinery,” is a symbol of the industrial North and its value. In paragraph two of section one, there is a vivid picture about the serenity and elegance of Miss Emily’s neighborhood which has been destroyed by obvious symbols of mechanization: the cotton gin and gasoline pumps. And Homer’s construction company coming to the town according to “the contracts” further implies the historical fact that the North expanded its force to the South after winning the Civil War. Under the new condition (Emily’s father’s death can be considered as the collapsing of the southern slavery system) Emily (the South) accepts Homer (the North) because of being seduced by this “big, dark, ready” Yankee. It is not long after they are in love that Emily finds Homer (the North) cannot be depended on (that he was not a marrying man). Since they cannot be unified forever, the South, which is deceived, has to struggle to resist the progressive and materialistic civilization of the North. From these points of view, Emily and Homer can never be getting together forever, and Emily is doomed to have a tragic love.