Discussion Questions Week 2
3. Yes, disturbed people can be in love. Emily from "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner is genuinely in love. In fact Emily loved so much that her love became an obsession and the obsession became an unhealthy mania. Initially in the story she is depicted by a townsperson as the , not so typical, old woman slowly going senile. Emily had fallen into a deep depression after her fiancé and father dies so she shuts the world, and does not come out of her home.
Emily is so effect by love that she cannot bare it. It is certainly not healthy to love someone so much that when they die they shut themselves out. Depression, in a sense, is actually normal when love is lost. I'm quite positive that if depression did not follow it would be considered abnormal. There are accounts that even Abraham Lincoln dug up his son a week after he was put in the grave because he was so heartbroken and distraught. It is not that digging up a grave is normal behavior. When people fall under extreme depression and hopelessness that they often times would act in ways not considered to be healthy.
Emily is one of those people. She is driven to insanity by the men that she lost. Finally, after she is older, Emily, falls in love with a man by the name of Homer Barron. The happy couple become engaged, but one day he disappears. By this time, Emily no longer knows how to behave as a ordinary human being. Many years go by and Emily dies. This is when we find out how crazy she really was. Homers dead body is found in and old dusty room, and it appears as though Emily slept alongside the dead body.
Emily loved more than a normal being, not the other way around. If she didn't love then she would not have gone insane in the first place. She loved so much that should could no longer cope. By the end of the story her normal perceptions of love became distorted, and she loved selfishly. So selfishly, that in fear she of losing Homer, she killed him.
6. Yes, I am bothered by "The Storm" by Kate Chopin's happy ending. Most people like stories with "happy endings", but in this case there should be someone left unhappy. No, there is not a moral message sent in this story which is the case in most themes. When people have happy marriages, they just do not go out and cheat on there spouse. Normally there is a problem with the one or both of the people in the marriage. Maybe the husband or wife is board, feel unloved, or need to feel young.
Clarisse, the unfaithful partner in "The Storm", seems to really be in love with her husband, Bobinot. Even after her sexual encounter with another man she does not feel ashamed. She did not even let on that something happened while Bobinot was away with their son, Bibi. Life just continuous on happily for the family. The message or theme that Chopin is trying to portray is that women should be free of men. Clarisse does whatever she wants and does not tell her husband a thing. At first it seems strange, but then after analyzing Chopin and think about her typical theme it makes more sense.
However, I do not think that this happens often in real life. Most accounts of unfaithfulness does not result in happiness. If it did polygamy and open marriages would seem normal in our culture. Chopin unusual themes is what makes her so good and sets her aside from other writers.
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I think you make some very good points about the way Emily loved. It is clear that she was reacting to something with her strange and erratic behavior, and she may indeed have loved the men in her life so strongly that she turned to some rather unsavory measures to preserve that love. While we on the outside may see those behaviors as strange or abnormal, Emily determined her own normality and pursued her version of life fully and without apology.
ReplyDeleteGood job :)
Hello Reed,
ReplyDeleteHow are you doing? I hope that you are well, and that you are having a good week so far.
I am going to comment on question number three. I think you did a great job on it! :-)
I have to agree with you. Mentally-ill people can love others as well. Honestly, when I read this story, I felt pity for Emily. The townspeople seemed to gossip about her a lot (which I am sure that it did not help); however, I did not think that she was always mentally-ill. I believe that it started when her father died: "The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom. Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly" (qtd. in Schlib and Clifford 670). It was her father's death that was the turning point in Miss Emily's mind. She greatly missed him. However, there was another reason she clung onto her dead father's body for so long - because she felt robbed of opportunities: "We did not say she was crazy then. We 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" (qtd. in Schlib and Clifford 671). Miss Emily felt that her father had robbed her of opportunities to date good men because he drove them away. To re-emphasize the point, I believe that this had to be the turning point in Miss Emily's mind that made her go mentally-ill. She could not stand anyone leaving her anymore. That is why when she fell head over heels in love with Homer Barron, she could never let him leave her. She bought him the best clothes (including a complete men's outfit and nightclothes), and a silver toilet set with Homer's initials engraved on it! Still, Miss Emily could not take a chance...she had to make sure that Homer never left her house. Therefore, she bought the arsenic poison, and silently killed her lover. Several people complained about some type of smell, and the townspeople took care of it with some lime. But people never saw Homer Barron again. When Miss Emily died, they discovered where he was, decaying in a bed in Miss Emily's house: "The man himself lay in the bed. For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him" (qtd. in Schlib and Clifford 674). However, after all that time that the body of Homer was decaying, the townspeople noticed something strange about the bed where Homer was laying: "One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair" (qtd. in Schlib and Clifford 674). After Miss Emily did the dark deed, she knew that she had Homer forever, and therefore, slept next to him for the rest of her life. She loved him so much that she just could not bear losing him. So, being mentally-ill, she went out and killed him, and slept lovingly next to him until the day of her death. However, I believe that Miss Emily would not have been like this if her father had driven away so many people. He probably did not realize it, but he was also isolating Miss Emily, and when her father died, she lost it (mentally, that is).
Thanks for the good read, and have a blessed week! :-)
Sincerely,
Jillian