military defeat during the Civil War on its own soil and went into a long hard social Reconstruction era. In this period with the social change, the southern inherent code of ethics and social ideal were made irreversible changes.
The South Literary movement in the decades since the 1930s, known as the Southern Literary Renaissance, emphasized on the regional setting and tradition to individuals' lives , and flourished all over the world. Notable writers of this period, such as William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, and Thomas Wolfe, placed characters and action in the South to explore the importance of their southern heritage and environment.
Through the study of the southern works, it is not difficult to find the contradictions in their thoughts. On one hand, they wrote about the past of the South in their memories, in order to pass the Southern Myth to the younger generation. On another hand, they reflected and attacked the historical problems in the South, and tried to rewriting, or even to subverting the Southern Myth at the same time. They were taking pride in their own southern heritage, while making self-analysis and reflection on the values they had fought to preserve and in some cases a reaffirmation of those values.
Deeply affected by the stereotype of the Southern \most female characters in this period were pure, elegant and sacred. Faulkner created many nice female characters in his novels, such as the black housekeeper, Dilsey, in The Sound and the Fury, Lena Grove in Light in August, etc. They were kind and lively, reflecting the traditional virtues of human nature. However, dislike these female characters, Emily Grierson was an anti-traditional female image. Through this anti-traditional female image, Faulkner showed us the contradictions of the southern people, and her tragic life also predicted the decline of the Old South. This kind of anti-traditional female image was also proved to be attractive.
It is the features of the contradiction and the local color that made the Southern Literature flowering. Although their works are regional, they are universal as well. From the works of these contemporary southern writers, one can conclude that the art with its roots in a specific place or region really has its own spirit, because \
art is not of a region but transcends region.\is derived from the life but transcends the life. Nowadays, the South continues to assert in its art, and its distinctive regional qualities. III. What Led to the Tragedy of Emily 3.1 The Aristocratic Status
Emily lived in such a time that the South was sharply and inevitably declining after the Civil War. Before the war, the southerners enjoyed a peaceful and rich life that the slavery and the plantation economy brought to them, worshiping the graceful noble civilization. While the Civil War destroyed the slavery system and plantation economy that they lived on, and their ideology based on the physical basis was collapsing at the same time. So a great change happened in their traditional lifestyle and values with the history. The graceful noble civilization of the South was struggling under the shadow of losing the war and poverty.
In this period, the southerners were filled with contradictions. On one hand, they found the shortcomings of their old traditions. On the other hand, they wanted to retain their former glory, kept their old values, and the old generation tried their best to care the declining aristocracy who were once very glorious.
Emily was the typical noble during that special period. In the eyes of the town fellows, \Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town\She was a model of a \Lady\a symbol of the Old American South, and a monument of the tradition. She represented the dream that they had fought for and had already lost. On her funeral, \men - some in their brushed Confederate uniforms- on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps.\honored history, and she also was the best proof of their glory. Just like Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren said, \ Just because of her superior status, when she fell in love with a Yankee, Homer
Barron, the whole town considered it as a kind of \the town fellows? minds, what they did was not only to object her affair, but also to guard their own ideal tradition. In such a community, it seemed to be impossible for Emily to pursue her own love with Homer. 3.2 Her Father's Control
Emily was born in an aristocratic family. Although the family was declining after the Civil War, the status of the aristocracy was still rooted in the southerners' minds. The Griersons took the superiority for granted in the town. People in the town believed that \None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such.\
From the story, it is obvious that Emily?s father, Mr. Grierson, dominated her whole life physically and mentally. For one thing, he isolated Emily physically from the whole community. He thought that there was no need for the aristocracy like them to keep contact with the common people, and none of the young men in the town can be worthy of his daughter, so he drove away all the pursuers of Emily, which finally led to Emily?s lonely life.
In the \family, her father, as the ruler, always made Emily under control and abided by the traditional doctrines in all his life. Speaking of her father, it is said, \that quality of her father which had thwarted her woman?s life so many times had been too virulent and too furious to die\It just tells the truth without any exaggeration.
As a declining southern aristocrat, her father sustained the whole family, controlling every member in it. In her father's eyes, Emily was just an object that totally belonged to him. He made every decision for her, including her love and marriage. He deprived of her freedom, made her almost never go out of the house, and seriously interfered in her life, just in order to keep her loyal and pure, to keep their noble status. As a father, what he cared most was not his daughter?s happiness, but the aristocratic status, which made Emily?s life into a tragedy.
For another thing, under the aura of the family glory, Emily had to take the heavy burden on her shoulder. She was made into a \as an ideal of the southern culture, whether she was willing to be or not.
From the very fact of isolation, Emily was deprived of all rights that a human should have. In the story, there is such a statement of a tableau that \thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door%us a vivid picture about Emily and her father?s relationship: being controlled and to control. The man clutching a horsewhip isolated her in the name of protection, depriving of her opportunity to connecting with the society.
Without mother, Emily neither had ever enjoyed the parents' love from her father for a moment. Moreover, she even didn't have any friends to talk with. Her father and the house were the very center of her life. During the age which should had been her best, freedom was stifled and thought was shackled. And all of these due to the selfish and imperious \trapped her into the stereotype of \opening the prelude of her tragic life by his own hands.
So, Emily's life can be viewed as a symbol. In such a patriarchal society, she was always a caged bird, an object of her father. In fact, even after her father's death, Emily was still under control, because his words and deeds had already been deeply carved in her heart, and his influence would last for good. 3.3 Emily's Own Conflicts
Apart from the social and the family's factors, Emily herself should also pay for her own tragedy, because of her contradictions.
On one hand, she kept herself in the honored past South, no matter how the society had developed. The whole story took place after the Civil War, after the South lost the battle. The old tradition was severely being challenged and the new thought
was emerging constantly. The southern society was on the course of transformation. In spite of the social development, what could be seen from Emily was a complete old tradition. She lived in the bleak family house, wore the black old-style clothes, maintained the noble superiority and was followed by a black servant, as if the time was still for her. The most obvious example was that she refused to admit that she owed any taxes. She even did not recognize the mayor. Instead, she referred the committee to Colonel Sartoris, who, as the reader was told, had been dead for nearly ten years. For Emily, apparently, Colonel Sartoris is still alive. What else, when the town got free postal delivery, she alone refused to fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it.
It is true that she was imbued with the thought of aristocracy and white superiority since she was born. It is also true that she was too used to this status and thought to adapt to the different society, and no one taught her, either. Being confronted with the great changes around her, especially her father's death, she was at a loss. Since the fetter from her father disappeared, she could had obtained her freedom, but she didn't know how to make a change, and all that she knew were given by her dead father. So when her father died, she denied to the townspeople for three days that he was dead. She was afraid to the changes, both of the society and the family. The old culture had already been entrenched in her heart, depriving her ability to accept new things. What's more, the town people admired her, but never let her into their life. Thus, there was no choice but to continuing along the way that her father set for her.
On the other hand, she wanted to get rid of the fetter to pursue her love. Her lover, Homer Barron, was described as \—a big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face\love with a Yankee, or in another words, a noble of the tradition loved a worker of a new class. From the man she chose, it is not difficult to find the rebellious aspect of Emily. Homer represents a totally different life from Emily's resting one. So their love dooms to be a failure. Homer does not accept Emily's love, all the people in the town do not allow this, and Emily herself also struggles in the inner self. People \