Reality:  Fact or Perception

by

Amy Keith

My father has taught me, as I have traversed through various experiences in my life, that in the absence of fact, perception becomes reality.  This concept is vital to understanding William Faulkner's short story AA Rose for Emily.@  The story is centered on the life of Aan eccentric spinster@ (D. Akers 247) who is known to the town she lives in as Miss Emily Grierson.  The tale is narrated by Emily=s neighbors, the townspeople, and embodies the idea that when no definitive fact is present in a situation, the perceptions of those involved represent reality.  The people of the town of Jefferson view Emily as an enigma due to the fact that they do not know or understand why she chooses to live her life the way she does.  As the story unfolds with a slightly retrospective tone, Faulkner reveals to readers his various themes encased within the story.  In the final scene of the narrative, when the townspeople discover a body that Emily has been hiding in her home, readers see the main themes of darkness, perception (perspective), and beauty converge to intricately form a woven web of both fact and perception that makes the story the literary masterpiece that it is.  Faulkner weaves the story together in this seamless manner in an effort to convey the reality of the story=s plot.  By using the townspeople as his narrator, Faulkner challenges his readers to approach the story with an attitude similar to that with which they would approach a town gossip.  In doing this, Faulkner strives to communicate to the reader that the perceptions and biases of others ultimately combine to form a rather realistic, yet well-rounded, portrait of humanity.  In this attempt by Faulkner, perception is presented as reality. This approach to linking reality and perception strengthens the impact of Faulkner=s story because the reader must do the same thing the townspeople are presented as doing: accepting perception as reality when no defined fact is present.

A main theme of darkness runs throughout AA Rose for Emily@ and has contributed to the widely held opinion that this story can be classified as a ASouthern gothic style[d]@ (D. Akers 257) work.  This classification highlights the fact that many of the elements Faulkner incorporates into his story, such as darkness, death, and dismal descriptions of a society passed by, fall into the genre of a Gothic tale and a sub-genre of Southern Gothicism due to the social setting.  Emily Ahas had very little to do with the townspeople during her life@ (T. Akers 253) and has thus kept her personal life hidden from the prying eyes of the town.  As a result of this, the townspeople remain darkly blinded to the truth of Emily=s actions and her way of life.  The darkness her reclusive lifestyle has bred is revealed in the last scene of the story when the townspeople break into the Aone room in that region above the stairs which no one had seen in forty years@ and find the dead and Arotted@ body of Homer Barron, Emily=s assumed lover (Faulkner 289).  The townspeople, up to this point in the story, have merely assumed that Homer left Emily due to the fact that Ahe was not a marrying man@ (Faulkner 287).  This perception-based assumption of the townspeople illustrates that in the absence of fact, perceptions, such as this assumption, become reality.  However, in this instance, the townspeople=s ignorance of the situation causes them to embrace an untrue reality.  This untruth is made known by their discovery of the decaying body.

Continuing this theme of darkness, Faulkner creates a situation in which the townspeople=s perception-based reality is fed by illusionary appearances.  Both Emily and Homer become "prisoner[s] in a world which had all of the appearances of reality except that most necessary of all things, life" (West 266).  Emily's decision to "regulate the natural time-universe" (West 266) by taking Homer's life and not allowing him to pursue his own decisions ultimately forces Emily to become captive to her own life.  This invisible captivity, which dictates virtually every moment of Emily's life, can only be escaped by her death.  Therefore, when Emily has "died in one of the downstairs rooms" (Faulkner 288) of the same house serving as her forced prison, the finality of her decision to murder Homer travels full-circle.  By selfishly taking the life of another human being and hiding her wrong doing, Emily has unknowingly chosen to forfeit the remainder of her life to desolation.  Since this forfeiture of life cannot be exposed to the townspeople, Emily's odd-but-not-suspicious life-long facade only feeds the town's imagination and creates a furthered perception-based reality that is void of solid fact.

The fact that Emily had killed Homer in a selfish attempt to keep him from leaving her, which the townspeople come to realize through their gruesome discovery, continues to deepen the darkness and mystery that surround her life.  In this manner, the "evidently shut up [. . .] top floor of the house" (Faulkner 288) serves as a "timeless meadow" (West 265) in which "all time, past and present, merges into one, and change ceases to exist" (Powell 2) in Emily's twisted reality.  This image of Emily "lock[ing] herself away from all change inherent in the passage of time" (Powell 2) provides a clue to her inevitably distorted and disillusioned mental state.  To have killed someone and kept the body in her home, Emily undoubtedly has to have become disillusioned to some extent.  In killing Homer so he would not desert her, Emily forces herself to shut off a part of her mental conscience much like she has closed off a part of her own house.  The room that she has enclosed Homer in has become her skewed reality.  This twisted reality feeds Faulkner's theme of perception becoming reality due to the fact that Emily's perception, like the townspeople's perception, was not fully fact-based and, therefore, is not an accurate representation of a true reality.  This inaccurate reality manifests itself in this closed off room in which "the living Emily and the dead Homer have remained together as though not even death could separate them" (West 265).  As a result of the fact that she unavoidably must realize she has committed a crime, she basically forces herself to live a secluded life void of the perception-based reality of the larger society.  This seclusion partly advances the disillusionment that Emily suffers due to the fact that she feels she is "above" the townspeople and their laws and thus can do whatever she wants.  Since the townspeople are not privy to the knowledge and circumstances of Homer's death, they merely cater to Emily's haughty lifestyle by generally accepting her aloofness solely as the remnant of an out-of-date societal tradition.

The townspeople's perceptions of Emily and her life change the instant they engage in "the violence of breaking down the door" (Faulkner 289) to this closed off room.  Their instant discovery of the fact "that [. . .] Emily murder[ed] the lover who spurned her and sle[pt] beside his decaying body for a number of years" (Magill 849-850) reveals the secret that dictated most of Emily's life.  This discovery provides the townspeople with undeniable facts about Emily's life.  However, because the townspeople are limited in their ability to understand Emily and her life, they take from the situation only those facts that support and further their original perception-based reality.  This selective understanding, which is practiced universally by humankind, is evident to the reader who serves as an omniscient, all-knowing being of truth, something neither the townspeople nor Emily can ever be.  Ultimately, the realities that the townspeople perceive, and the reality that Emily lived in, prove to be in disagreement because of "the paradox [Emily] has become in death" (Davis 2).  Due to the many unanswered questions that her death has left, the townspeople are unable to step into Emily's mind and fully understand her actions and motives.  As a result of this inability, the discovery of Emily's best-kept secret leads once again to a perception-based reality for the townspeople.  This reality is not the reality Emily lived in from day to day.  Emily understands her actions and motives and therefore perceives her life as a fact-based reality.  Ironically, neither the townspeople's perception-based reality nor Emily's fact-based reality portrays the full truth of the situation.  Therefore, the reader, who is privy to both a fact- and perception-based reality, gains the opportunity and information necessary to draw a completed picture and create a believable reality.  Faulkner creates the story in this manner in an effort to advance the understanding of fact, perception, and reality in the reader by causing the reader to examine what he or she would have embraced as reality had he or she been present in this situation.

A third theme discovered in the last scene of "A Rose for Emily" is that of beauty.  The room that the townspeople barge into has not been haphazardly designed nor thoughtlessly put together.  The only odd feeling is that of "a thin, acrid pall as of the tomb [that] seemed to lie everywhere upon this room" (Faulkner 289).  The townspeople are momentarily stunned as their gaze sweeps around the room, and they take in every carefully laid item which has made the room seem "furnished as for a bridal" (Faulkner 289).  Among these items "lay a collar and tie, as if they had just been removed" thus alluding to the fact that nothing has been disturbed in a very long time.  The townspeople, not yet having discovered the "profound and fleshless grin" of Homer's dead body (Faulkner 289), describe the initial scene in a mixed tone of awe and confusion.  Their limited understanding of Emily's life, and her reality, plays into the fact that they seem to be confused as to why she would have beautifully decorated a death chamber.  This confusion leads the reader to consider Emily's reality and to understand that Faulkner attempts to convey that beauty is self-created.  In Emily's eyes this room is where she and Homer have spent their "life" together, and she wants it to be beautiful. This illustration provides yet another instance where perception and fact of both Emily and the townspeople produce an accurate reality where beauty and the macabre blend together inextricably.  Similarly, the beauty of the room and the "sleep [. . .] that conquers even the grimace of love" (Faulkner 289) blend together flawlessly to create the ultimate reality of Faulkner"s story:  both fact and perception are crucial to complete understanding.

Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is a short story that mixes fact with perception and creates an almost unbelievable reality.  However, Faulkner blends what appears to be a fact-based reality with a perception-based reality and presents a cosmos full of planned surprises and interactions, thus creating the literary masterpiece of "A Rose for Emily."  The reader's access to multiple perspectives provides insightful understanding into the life of Emily Grierson, as well as an understanding of basic human mindsets.  The story embodies the concept that in the absence of fact, perception becomes reality.  This reality, thinly veiled in truth, is a tainted reality portraying where most of humankind lives from day to day.

Powell, Janice A.  AChanging Portraits in >A Rose for Emily.=@  20 April 2003.  <http://www2.semo.edu/cfs/powell.html>.

West, Ray B. Jr.  AAtmosphere and Theme in Faulkner=s >A Rose for Emily.=@  William Faulkner:  Four Decades of Criticism (1973) : 192-98.  Rpt. in Short Stories for Students:  Presenting Analysis, Context and Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories.  Ed. Tim Akers.  Vol. 6.  Farmington Hills, MI: 1999.  263-267.