Poison in Faulkner Poison Plays

Poison in Faulkner

Poison plays an important role in William Faulkner's short story a Rose for Emily because it gives the protagonist freedom from years of captivity. Emily was a dark character and her intentions were equally negative therefore use of poison near the end was the most suitable choice of weapon to kill her lover. Emily was the kind of character that would have never chosen something else, like let go of her lover or kill him with a bullet. For her character, poison was the ideal choice, keeping with her negative traits and her dark, ugly but mysterious life. Bullet or something else might have created noise, thus attracting the attention of people around but that was just not Emily. Emily was a quite mysterious character whose intentions were always hidden and who rarely spoke to anyone. "Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottleneck of the most recent decade of years." (Page 120) She wanted an equally quiet end to her love story and that is what she gained by using poison and administering it her lover.

William Faulkner was fascinated with the darker side of life and for him, creating this story and ending her characters' lives with poison was just a way of exploring mysterious and ugly side of human mind. In fact that character of Emily was created keeping in view the darker side. Someone with a more positive personality and healthier character traits might have never done what she did and the ending wouldn't have generated a sense of dread as it did in this story with Emily as the protagonist. Brooks et al. write: "This is a story of horror. We have a decaying mansion in which the protagonist, shut away from the world, grows into something monstrous, and becomes as divorced from the human as some fungus growing in the dark on a damp wall... Miss Emily is obviously a pathological case. The narrator indicates plainly enough that people felt that she was crazy. All of this explanation prepares us for what Miss Emily does in order to hold her lover -- the dead lover is in one sense still alive for her -- the realms of reality and appearance merge." (Brooks et al. 37)

Emily was a psychopath by modern standards whose character had suffered from sexual repression for so long that it had led to perversity (Inge, 48). For such a person using poison to kill her lover was the most perfect ending. What surprises the reader even more is the way in which she carries out the murder. She goes to the store to purchase poison with complete intention of committing the heinous act but does it with such cool and calm that you could never imagine what was going on at the back of her mind. Emily goes to the medical store and asks for poison in completely composed manner as if it was just another item on her grocery list. The whole poison-purchasing scene is very interesting and adds to the impact of her action. Emily is determined to buy poison and let the pharmacist assume it is to kill rats. While he is adamant about knowing the truth, Emily is not interested in sharing the details of her plans with him.

I want some poison," she said to the druggist. She was over thirty then, still a slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eyesockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper's face ought to look. "I want some poison," she said.

Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I'd recom -- " want the best you have. I don't care what kind."

The druggist named several. "They'll kill anything up to an elephant. But what you want is -- "

Arsenic," Miss Emily said. "Is that a good one?"

Is... arsenic? Yes, ma'am. But what you want -- " want arsenic."

Faulkner, 144-145)

Emily wanted the best kind because she didn't want an inferior poison to foil her plan. This shows her commitment to her dark ideas. She must have been contemplating murder for sometime. Purchasing rat poison was the best choice because it was an ordinary item for most people and this would have never given anyone a hint as to what she was about to do.

Poison always signifies death and decay. This was also in tandem with the whole plot and the character of Emily. Emily was a symbol of decay herself since she had given up on life and happiness. Her father also played an important role in turning her into a symbol of early death. "Miss Emily Grierson, a member of one of the oldest families in Jefferson, lives alone in her frame house, afraid to go out after her father dies and her sweetheart deserts her. Emily's attachment to the will of the father -- it is said that he had driven all the young men away -- has stunted her growth." (Brooks et al. 37)